Death is lighter than a feather
by Haindar
Summary: Eternal Wanderer, Lonely Traveler, Chained Sage, and Master of Death. He was known by these and many more names in several worlds, though he found no solace in any name or world. Hallowed in blood, forged in war and baptised in loss, Harry Potter has run far away from the world that birthed him. He traces a path through infinity, intent on reclaiming that which was lost.
1. Chapter 1

DEATH IS LIGHTER THAN A FEATHER

CHAPTER ONE

A cave.

Once again, it was a goddamn cave. He could barely see, the smell was not unlike the smell of a Troll Keep he'd been to in Bulgaria, and by god it was humid. Sweat plastered his 'messy' hair the sides of his head, and a bunch of mosquitoes stung his arms repeatedly. Shit, that stung like hell. Flailing his arms around weakly, he tried to beat them off to no avail. Damn suckers latched on to him again in a a second, happily draining him of his blood. Cursing under his breath, he flailed his limbs with considerably more vigour.

Chains clanked, and his wrists burned where the iron chafed at his skin.

 _Well, shit. Of course. This couldn't be like the last one now, could it? It's Karma. Universe getting back at me to enforce its immutable law: Harry Potter cannot get too much suffering. Damn you, you useless Veil! Is it too much to hope for something good for once from you, you rotten piece of dinnerware? Fuck you!,_ he ranted at the artifact mentally, laying backwards on the damp floor, uncaring of the mosquitoes that stung him with what seemed like a renewed joy. A movement of his legs confirmed that they too were shackled to the wall.

His eyes narrowed, and he was now officially annoyed. He couldn't ever catch a break, now could he? No sir. Suffering just had to follow him even to other realities! Well, he was done playing around right now. He mustered up his Divination, Damnation, Desperation or whatever the three D's were, the cornerstone of Apparition. Not that he really had to think about the three D's to Apparate, really. Apparition was basically a good way to magically escape, and at escaping he was one talented son of a gun.

He appeared next to his now empty shackles without much effort, and stood up with no little effort. God, how long had it been since he'd eaten? He remembered making himself a slice of buttered toast at the Ministry but nothing since the Veil.

 _Damn brutes didn't even leave me food,_ he thought, his irritation spiking steadily. He felt around his pockets for perhaps a Cauldron Cake, or a Chocolate Frog.

No such luck, of course. However, he felt the handle of his wand lying innocently in his pocket.

 _They didn't even search me,_ he thought, grudgingly happy at this pleasant surprise. His surprise grew as he felt the Peverell Ring upon his finger still, and the Invisibility Cloak draped underneath his usual coat. This was too good to be true. And good things usually came with a bad thing as far as he was concerned. Frowning, he drew the Elder Wand forth and brought it up to gaze at it's beaded length.

"How _many_ times have I told you not to act out without my permission?"

The wand, which was pleasantly warm in his hand, now grew cold.

"I don't care if you were looking out for me. Oh, stop guilt tripping me will you? You're not good at it."

It shook slightly in his hand, and scorched his palm viciously.

"Ow!", he yelled. "Damn you, you useless-"

He jumped as the door opened with a bang that jarred his ears, rusty hinges screeching high at an application of force they were simply not designed to take. Light flooded into the room, dispelling the pitch blackness to reveal his jailer. It wasn't even much light, really; it was just a dull flickering light from the torch held by his captor. And speaking of his captor, he found that words failed him as his aching eyes quickly grew accustomed to the new brightness of the room.

"What in the _hell_ are you?", he asked the monstrosity standing before him.

The thing standing before him looked like someone had taken a Gringotts Goblin, engorged it to man-size, tortured the shit out of it, roasted it over a spit and filed its teeth to points. Oh, and painted its skin the color of a Shark. A low growling emerged from the gash that served as the thing's mouth, and its eyes burned with an intent he instantly recognized as murderous. He gulped as he saw a heavy scimitar held in its misshapen hand, and gulped again as he smelled the metallic scent of human blood emanating from its mouth.

It spat something at him, a grindingly harsh language he could simply not identify for the life of him. That stood to reason given where he was, but still.

"I don't speak German", he told it, just because he wanted to say something.

When it rushed at him with its weapon held aloft and its fanged mouth bared, he did not lash out with magic. He sidestepped neatly, and delivered a crushing elbow to its hideous face. Teeth crumbled inwards upon his blow as the thing staggered back. He launched himself into the air, body parallel to the ground as his right foot lashed out to kick his jailor solidly in the chest.

The thing went sailing backwards to the wall.

"I _am_ kind of good", he said modestly to the air as he landed softly on his knee. A moment later, a beautiful crunchy kind of thud sounded in his prison, signaling that his captor was probably out for good or dead. He bent to take the torch in his hand, and rummaged around in his coat pockets for a moment. Muttering about errant wands that didn't listen to him, he grasped the edges of a worn piece of cloth and pulled it out.

"Ah, Potter. You have dragged me into yet another shenanigan of yours, I see. To what dismal hell do I have the pleasure of accompanying you to this time?"

"Hat. It seems we're in a medieval kind of world with Goblin-like monsters. I just got here", he told the old accoutrement absently, and plunged his hand into its depths.

"Perfect. You could at least say hello before you violate me, Potter", the Hat said grumpily as his palm closed around the hilt of the Sword of Gryffindor. He stumbled as he laughed uproariously at the Hat's words, managing to draw the sword out as he caught himself before he fell to the ground in his amusement. Chuckles escaped him occasionally as he supported himself upon the grounded sword's hilt and stood up with some effort.

God, even that little fight had seriously taken a lot out of him. He carefully put the Hat upon his head, securing it with a mild fastening charm.

"You look like you're about to keel over, Potter. Please, do me a favor and postpone your death to someplace with a lot of air and adults. I've had enough of being stuck in dark places to last a millenium, only to be brought out to sing to a school of snotty brats", snarked the Hat.

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up", he said walking over to the repulsive thing he'd just put out of commission. Small rises and falls of its chest indicated that it was still alive. The Sword of Gryffindor fell in a silver arc, and that situation was rectified in a spray of black blood as its head separated from its body messily. He knelt down by the body to search it for some sustenance; guards, even monstrous ones like these usually carried some kind of drink around.

After a minute of groping around the thing's belt pouches, he hit upon a flask that had the same disgusting breath upon it as was emanating from the thing's mouth. He unstoppered it gingerly, and tried not to look to closely at its contents. It never worked on other worlds if you were too picky about things like food and drink.

Coughing and forcing down every last drop of the fiery drink down by sheer will, he discarded the rest of the guard's possessions. Random bones, crude totems, keys, and other meaningless keepsakes were all the creature had.

The drink, whatever it was, had given new strength to his tired limbs. Putting the torchlight out, he snapped his fingers in the complete darkness that followed. The Invisibility Cloak dutifully covered him from head to toe, and the Hat sighed with relief upon his head at its new anonymity. For some reason, the Hat seemed to prefer being invisible while it accompanied him. He couldn't for the love of god figure out why.

He moved efficiently, guided by instincts of an older life: his paradise before everything had gone to shit, when he had just been the Head Auror with three adorable children he'd loved more than life itself and a beautiful, devoted wife. It had been centuries from his point of view since that time, and he still had to blink tears away at the memories.

And wrestle the boiling, blinding anger down. It was so _hard_ to wrestle that rage down, to not drown others in his misery.

He vanished the body parts nonverbally, and flicked the Elder wand. Faint screams became audible to him from somewhere above as the _Supersensory Charm_ took effect, and he recognized them as being female and in terrible agony. Much louder jeers almost drowned the pained shrieks out, and he identified the jeering crowd as being of the same species as the guard he'd just put down. His mouth opened in a snarl as he whipped around towards that direction.

"No Potter. You need to go in the _opposite_ direction, while everyone's occupied up there. Merlin bless that poor woman for giving us a chance to escape neatly, but you need to leave this place and get to the surface. There's a lot we need to do before we get comfortable here, you know the drill. There is something about this world that really terrifies me, and makes my hair stand on end. I know, I know, I have no hair, but still...wait. Potter, where are you going? Potter, you moron! Stop! Not this again! Not your boneheaded saving people thing now, of all times!"

"Quiet, Hat. You don't want to give us away", said Harry, as he made his way towards the source of the heart wrenching screams.

"You've silenced the air around us!"

"And I will cancel that if you don't shut up."

"Fine!," the Hat said mutinously, its 'mouth' closed into a thin line. The stubbornness of an enchanted piece of cloth didn't figure very high on his list of priorities at that moment. He slowly made his way up the winding subterranean path, guided mostly by sparsely spaced torches and his own magically augmented senses. He gritted his teeth and moved as quickly as he was able as the screams grew hoarse, punctuated by pleading sobs.

The screams tore at him, and even his knowledge of Occlumency failed to shield him from her cries. It felt _wrong, wrong, wrong._ She shouldn't cry in pain like that. She was probably somebody's wife, or somebody's mother. They'd all failed to protect her, and she was suffering because of their failure. Thoughts tumbled incoherently in his mind as he broke into a run.

He wouldn't fail to save her.

His thighs burned as he ran up the steep, craggy underground path. The _Supersensory_ Charm gave him unparalleled senses, and he was thus able to avoid most pitfalls even in the very dim light. The screams and jeers grew ever louder as he ran up the path, and finally he was standing right in front of a crude black door about his height. He skidded to a halt in front of the door, the screams now clearly audible over the jeers. His fists clenched as he realized he'd been underestimating the depth of her torment; because of the cave's abnormal acoustics, the callous jeering had drowned out the agony. Now that he was at the door to this hell, her screams and pitiful cries were the only thing audible.

The Elder Wand sprang to his right hand, and the Sword of Gryffindor spun in a blurring circle in his left. The Resurrection stone glinted sinisterly in the torchlight upon the finger of his left hand, and the Invisibility Cloak fit itself snugly over his entire body. He took a deep breath as he slowly approached the door, laying the tip of the Deathstick upon it. He had to be subtle, here. The days when he went bulldozing into a fight flinging spells left and right, they were long gone.

"I may need your help during the fight, Hat."

Silence.

"Hat?"

"Oh, I can talk now?", spat the Hat angrily.

"Spare me your drama. You know I won't let that woman suffer any longer", said Harry tersely, as he traced the wand in a circle over the door.

"No, spare me _your_ drama, Potter! You keep rushing to save damsels in distress, as if you can ever make up for how you failed to save your wife. You did it on Valash, You did it in Treshinhan, in Folgur, in Manz, everywhere. I've had it with you and your complexes, you blockhead!"

He flinched ever so slightly at the Hat's harsh accusations. It was nothing he hadn't heard before, but it still made him ache. Forgoing his usual witty retort, he drew the wand back and tapped it gently in the middle of the circle he'd repeatedly been tracing for the past two minutes.

And then, he stepped through the door as if it had been made of nothing but air. His eyes widened, and the foul drink he'd just swallowed threatened to eject itself from his stomach at the scene of horror he'd just stepped into.

It was a large hall, huge torches casting blazing light that flickered, ebbed and waned ghoulishly over the rough stone walls. The air was rank with the smell of blood and decayed flesh, and he avoided retching by a hair's breadth as he saw large iron dishes containing what looked like cooked human limbs. He nearly lost his mind when he saw a child's head, no bigger than Lily had been when she'd been four, in a grimy dish.

Cavorting grossly everywhere were the same type of monster that had guarded him while he'd been chained downstairs. They sang boisterously in their screeches and howls, and roared their appreciation at their sick celebrations. They attacked each other, and bruised their brethren as they fed upon the remains of humans they'd killed.

One stick-thin beast with cruel fangs and misshapen ears took a bite out of the child's head as if it were nothing but a particularly juicy apple.

He felt lost for a moment at the sight of such...such wanton evil. His wand shook in his nerveless fingers as he stood invisible in that hall of depraved loss and torment. He closed his eyes, trying to gather himself before one of the beasts bumped into him. All he wanted to do was retreat into himself, obliviate himself of the hell he had just seen.

"Potter, look at the center of the chamber!", the Hat hissed in his ear, and almost in concert an ear splitting scream of loss echoed in the hall.

Opening his eyes was perhaps the hardest thing he'd done in a long while. In the very center of the ghastly feast was a large wooden table, and upon it was the woman who had screamed the screams he'd heard for the past half hour. When he saw what they'd done to her, he could only wonder why she did not scream louder.

She had been nailed naked to the table by her hands and legs. One of the creatures stood above her, a tall beast wielding a dagger as long as his forearm. Another short monster stood at the side of the table, its mouth bloody. It was licking its lips as if savoring a particularly tasty dish.

Her body was a mass of bruises, and awash with her own blood. Chunks of flesh were torn away from her abdomen, legs and side to reveal bone. She was slashed all over her shoulders and arms, but her face...her face was lovelier than words could say. Silvery hair tumbled down in gleaming waves to her waist. Her ears tapered gracefully to a point.

She was not human, of that there was no doubt. He was disoriented for a moment at seeing such beauty in the midst of this unfathomable horror.

And then, the fat beast bent forward and sank its fangs into the woman's side to tear a small piece of flesh away. At the same time, the dagger fell to slash her from chest to hip across the abdomen. Her blood sprayed all over the nearby abominations, and they lapped it up from where it fell even were it the floor or the bodies of their fellows.

"Fire?", he murmured in question, his eyes blazing.

"Fire. Don't leave a single one alive", the Hat agreed flatly.

He smiled grimly, raising the Elder Wand and flicking it towards the inhumanly beautiful female. The cave shook as his hex roared forth, clearing a straight path to the center table. The beasts in its path were tossed everywhere with terrific force, some ending as smears of blood on the ceiling while most sailed in all directions to end up breaking necks and heads upon the unforgiving stone walls.

The silence in the chamber was deafening.

Not one to lose the element of surprise, he Disapparated. Appearing behind the knife wielding beast that stood unaware with its mouth hanging open in a grotesque imitation of human surprise, he gently tapped it with the tip of his wand.

The shrieks that emanated from its putrid mouth were higher than he'd ever heard from anyone, on any world, he noted. But then again, he had never had the occasion to use the _Blood Boiling Hex_ upon anyone. The beast literally steamed, curls of smoke rising from its body as it fell to the floor in what was probably indescribable agony, as its very blood heated to boiling point.

 _Filthy animals,_ he thought derisively, as the beasts clamored about, shouting accusations at each other in their spitting harsh tongue. It quickly degenerated into a skirmish as they fell upon each other, tearing themselves apart as they blamed each other for the sudden inexplicable assault upon their brethren. Maybe they were too far gone in their depravity to apply reason, or maybe their brutish natures were such that they killed and ate each other like fish.

He didn't care. What he _wouldn't_ allow was them falling by any hand but his.

The mad, fat beast at the table he had forgotten. When it sprang upon the helpless female almost comatose at his feet, Harry's wand pointed at the thing.

Its abdomen exploded through its back, ropey black intestine and bits of flesh raining down upon the uncaring beasts fighting each other behind it. Not one of the demons noticed one of their brethren being eviscerated by his _Entrail Expelling Curse,_ occupied as they were in their cannibalistic brawl.

" _Istar…"_

He looked down at the soft call. The woman's shining blue eyes held his somehow knowing where he stood despite the Cloak, and they were filled with nothing less than the deepest pleading he had ever seen in another being. She had perceived him from the moment he had entered the hall, and known him to be the cause of every death in the past few minutes. He acknowledged her with a short nod, causing her to fall asleep with a short wave of his wand.

He then raised his wand high, and whirled it in a circle over his head.

The Elder Wand responded to its master's bidding, and a storm of white-hot fire exploded outward in all directions from the edges of the table. The fighting beasts stopped their struggles and finally turned to the centre of the table, registering far too late that there was a foreign threat.

Flames danced in Harry's green eyes, reflections of the sheets of white fire washing over the chamber at his direction. This was Albus Dumbledore's spell, the one he had used so long ago in the Dark Lord's cave to clear it of Inferi as they'd made their escape. As such, the spell was intended to utterly incinerate a human body's constitution. There was no escape for any beast in the room as they were fried and cooked in their own juices. The shackles upon the woman shattered, and the nails driven into her limbs disappeared. She floated behind him as he made his way toward the door, casting a flame freezing charm over them both.

The table upon which her blood was spattered was promptly consumed by the fires the moment he stepped off of it. He again passed through the door with his quarry as if it were nothing but air, but to the rest of the foul beasts it would be harder to break through than the stone wall.

He sniffed at the air, his heightened senses allowing him to perceive a direction where the air was thin and rarefied. The inhuman woman floating behind him, he made his way to a dark cavern in that direction.

The last hoarse shouts from behind the door only made his mouth twitch slightly. What a fearful world he had stumbled into.

…..

He washed his face, water spilling over the edges of the basin as he splashed it on his face repeatedly. He'd gotten somewhat used to the shrill howl of the winds outside, and even gotten in a few hours of sleep. Damn, but he couldn't tell whether it was day or night in this storm. He'd gotten something of a peek through the snow storm when they'd emerged out of the cavernous system of tunnels; he knew they were upon a mountain pass, a rather treacherous one if he remembered his glimpse clearly.

Great. They were stuck upon some high mountain range in a perennial storm.

"Thank Merlin some magic finally got beaten into your head, Potter. I remember that first time on Manz when were stuck like this on that desert", the Hat piped up from the snow stand he'd conjured for it.

"Yeah, Hat. Yeah", he murmured in agreement, shuddering at the memories the Hat had invoked. He snuggled into his cushion as he looked around at the dwelling he had fashioned out of the snow in the pass. His spells had provided water, and he had found that the power of the Elder Wand could bend Gamp's Law under certain conditions to create food. Furniture was scarcely a problem as he went about creating comfortable beds for himself and the woman. Heating spells regulated the temperature within his igloo-like dwelling, and ventilation spells kept the air fresh.

All this combined with sound sleep had rejuvenated him quite a bit, and cleared his mind.

For the dozenth time, his eyes fell upon the woman sleeping in the bed across him. Now that he could see her clearly, well...he could safely say he had not seen a more beautiful woman in all his travels. No Veela could possibly be this woman's equal, he thought. Her form was an amalgamation of purity and heart-stopping beauty, of sensuality and regality. He was pretty sure they'd have fought wars over someone like her in Folgur.

He had healed her broken bones and almost all of her physical injuries tirelessly for the better part of a day. So numerous were her wounds, and so cruel was the abuse inflicted upon her that even his considerably strong spells took much of the day to stabilize her. If a tenth of those grave wounds were dealt to a human, it would mean certain death.

Whatever species she belonged to, they were clearly incredibly durable in addition to their ethereal beauty.

There was however a poisoned wound upon her breastbone, exactly between her breasts. He had managed to confine the spread of that poison to a small region around where the wound lay, to await the attention of a real healer. She lay insensate upon her cot, dressed in flowing white silk robes he had transfigured from a clod of snow.

"How is your latest damsel doing?", the Hat queried, seemingly unable to just the hell up.

"Well. I managed to heal most of her body. I have no clue how to heal her mind", he said, lamenting his own lack of finesse with the Mind Arts. All he knew was to attack and defend; he was no mind healer or any sort of healer. What healing he knew was fit for crude battlefield situations, but they'd sufficed here.

"Better you leave her mind alone. They've already violated her physically in every possible way. We don't need you violating her mentally", the Hat said wisely.

"Fuck you too", he said tiredly, flipping the bird towards the offensive hat. Ignoring the smugly grinning accessory, he snuggled deeper into his blanket. Dumbledore would've been proud of his Transfigurations had he see it; for a moment he was tempted to summon the dead Headmaster as he'd done so very many times in the past. Dumbledore's mind was second to none, and if anyone could make sense of this dark and frightening world, it would be him. The Resurrection Stone glinted upon his finger balefully, innocently...purposefully.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You like driving me mad, don't you?", he queried the Hallow.

"You've already lost your marbles, Potter. Don't blame the Ring."

The Wand shook slightly in his pocket, and he sighed as he looked at the Hat. The stupid thing always disagreed with him, it was almost like having a hot bitchy girlfriend. You felt powerful with it by your side when you faced the world, but it treated you like crap when no one was looking.

"What am I to do when all my artifacts gang up on me?", he wailed at the ceiling, dramatically, as the Hat chuckled.

The Invisibility Cloak draped itself soothingly over him. He patted it a bit, and it fit itself even more snugly over his shoulders. It really was his favourite, truth be told. The hat was a caustic son of a bitch, the Wand was just cruel, and the Ring was one cold bastard. The Cloak always looked out for him, however. The Cloak was possibly the only thing that had been nice to him as long as they'd known each other. He patted it again, knowing it would be his friend till the very end.

Sighing, he sank back into his cot. There really wasn't much to do in the middle of a snowstorm. All he could hope was for the lady to wake up soon so he could peer into her memories and Apparate them all the hell out of this place. She'd slept soundly since he'd healed her wounds, though, not waking once for two days straight. He'd have thought her dead, for she made no noise while breathing even to his highly enhanced senses. Only the slight rise and fall of her chest betrayed the fact that she was still alive.

"You aren't going to sleep _again_ , are you, Potter? Not already tired of 'looking after' your newest distressed maiden, are you?"

"Die, Hat", he grunted, as his eyes closed. He was certainly tired enough, and the years had taught him to grab sleep at every possible opportunity. The Hat's insinuations were such old shtick to him that he slowly fell asleep to them, the storm's screeching howls his lullaby.

As always he dreamed of better days at Godric's Hollow and his family, memories of catching his little Lily sneaking candy to her room, of the fierce Quidditch matches with his sons...of making love to his wife.

And he smiled softly.

…

"Stop it, wand", he groaned in protest, opening his eyes with a few blinks. A glimpse from the small window he'd fashioned revealed that the storm continued unabated, but the daylight was fully gone to give way to night. The night sky was barely visible, but the moonlight was bright enough to cast shadows.

"Alright, I'm up. I'm up!", he shouted, leaping off the bed as a powerful sting raced up his chest where the point of the Elder Wand lay. He yowled with surprise as the wand stung him again for good measure.

"Damn you, you fucking wand! I'd throw you to be lost in some forgotten world if you didn't come back to me the next bloody second!", he yelled at the top of his voice, drawing it out by the handle and making as if to chuck it out of the very window he'd created with it. He didn't care if it came back, all he wanted to do was to throw it as far away as he possibly could.

"Before you go ahead with that boneheaded idea, Potter, may I suggest turning to your nine o'clock?", the Hat suggested from behind.

He slowly turned as the Hat said, and was met with the sight of the lady shrinking as far away from him as she could. Upon her face was a blind panic, her eyes wide and shining with tears. She hid her face from him with her hands, as if not seeing him would negate his existence. She shook like a leaf in the wind as she backpedaled further away, uncaring as she fell off of the bed and shored up against the wall.

"Sorry", he murmured to the wand, carefully stowing it into his robes in full sight of the shaking lady. It was important that he appeared as non-threatening as possible at this moment. He was not equipped to heal mental trauma such as hers, not even close, but he still did have much unwanted experience with victims of torment. He made to approach, but she whimpered and closed her eyes tightly behind her palms.

Raising his empty hands, palm outwards, he slowly approached her once more.

"Yes, that's right Potter. I'm sure the lack of a wooden stick is reassuring to a person who's been beaten and violated with bare hands for weeks, if not months", said the Hat, sarcasm dripping from its words.

He ignored the Hat, walking slowly toward the softly crying lady and kneeling before her. She peeked through her fingers for a moment at him and lurched backwards, gasping with pain as her head struck the ice wall. The impact had caused upon her a shallow cut, which stained her silvery hair red near the base of her neck.

"I won't hurt you, my lady", he told her softly.

"Oooh. My Lady, he says. Look who's suave with the bab-"

He didn't even look at the infuriating Hat, nor did he utter a single word or even change his expression as his spell rendered it silent forcibly. He made sure to keep his movements slow and gentle as he took hold of her shaking wrists and pried them away from her face. Frantic fear was the only thing she exuded, freezing in place as he extended his finger to touch the base of her neck.

"I don't mean you harm", he repeated firmly as the blood ceased staining her with the closure of the cut.

" _Istar?",_ she whispered, her expression changing ever so slowly to one of fearful hope. " _Ume I Valar faina lle a' amin?"_

The tongue she spoke was musical and flowing, and her voice made it all the more so. He stared at her dumbly, this world's contradictions hitting him hard. How could someone like her be taken by ugly monsters such as the ones he'd put down? What kind of a world was this? What was this female doing to get captured by those fiends?

And these questions did not even begin to scratch the surface of what he wanted to know. The priority was now to get to a populated place of safety. He could then see to it that she got someone to heal her properly, and he could get some information to find his footing in this new reality.

" _Istar?",_ she whispered again softly.

He nodded, not knowing what that meant. Clearly the word held some hope for her, and if she had any hope at all in this desolate mountain it was he. So he nodded again with a smile, holding the attention of her wide blue eyes with his own.

" _Mani naa lle essa, Istar?"_

Ignoring her melodious query tinged still with suspicion and fear, he dove into her mind. His facility with the mind arts were nothing to write home about, unfortunately. There was nothing like a feather light touch as far as his Legilimency skills were concerned; he was no Snape or Dumbledore there. So he tried to be as quick as possible when he breached her mind, looking for a memory she associated with safety or happiness. He held her wrists firmly above her head as she cried out in pain at his unsubtle intrusion.

A few moments later he withdrew swiftly, and put her to sleep with a muttered spell. He levitated her to the cot slowly, laying her sleeping form gently upon it so as not to disturb her. He flicked his wand to place and secure the silenced Hat upon his head, and knelt to take the lady's hand gently in his left palm as he levitated her to float supine beside him.

He took two deep breaths, focusing on the image of the otherworldly, ethereally beautiful forest of silver-barked trees and golden leaves. He gripped the Elder Wand tightly in his other hand, knowing to be ready for attack - the lady whose hand he held remembered immense power in those woods, a sorcery that kept all she loved safe and happy.

A wave of his wand, his transfigured furniture returned to being the original clods of snow they'd started out as. Another wave, and his temporary igloo began to dissipate slowly into the storm raging outside.

Cracking his neck, he Disapparated them with a sharp popping sound.

….


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Rustling filled the air as he walked forward, the ground coated thick with falling leaves that were so luminous and metallic that he'd mistake them for being actually carved from gold. The trees themselves were enormous, the largest trunks being as thick as probably a dozen trolls and rising so high that he had to squint to recognize where it blended into the golden canopy. A shaft of sunlight fell through the thick leaves high above, lending a tranquil shine to the entire forest around him.

"These woods are old, Hat. Older and alive for far longer than it ought to be," whispered Harry, glancing around with no little awe and some apprehension at the ethereal loveliness of the golden forest around him.

He had not seen its like in any world he had visited. There was a distinct flavour of adamantine beauty and effortless existence to the forest, of a sense of benevolence and an endurance that would not shatter no matter what darkness was thrown at it. He tasted a power in the air that was terrible and wonderful at once, and he knew that power had endured for eons. The one who sustained these timeless woods had glimpsed into the tapestry of infinity; he knew it. He could practically feel the ageless nature of the power washing over him, like the calm waves of an ocean which would exist for the age of an entire world. He had run into such beings on other worlds, but never one as strong as this one.

Wariness was called for here.

"Well, fuck me if this isn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in the entirety of my torturous existence!"

The deep silence in the forest was only mildly disturbed at the Hat's profane screech, and it seemed as if the very forest rejected the restlessness of the intruders. A lone bird flew into the sky as the Hat's cry echoed through the forest. His eyes widened as the implications rushed through his head - the silencing spell he had placed upon that annoying piece of cloth was broken. Even the fringes of the strength in this forest had counteracted his silencing charm! Now he had a better measure than before of what he was dealing with.

"Hat, why couldn't you have shut your gob for a few more minutes?," he asked with a sigh as he released the effect of the Invisibility Cloak. There was no point to further concealment now that the Hat had opened it's overly wide mouth - his location was probably known to the denizens of this forest whether or not they could actually see him.

"Go eat tripe, Potter!," exclaimed the Hat in scandalised tones. "You don't get to act all superior on me. It's not _my_ fault your spells have the strength of one of Dumbledore's erections!"

He simply didn't have a retort to that. The Hat had once again spawned images in his head that he'd really been happy without seeing. However, his Hallows did have a variety of reactions to the Hat's impudence.

The Elder Wand thrummed angrily in his hand, clearly taking offense at the Hat's insinuation about its efficacy. The Cloak happily wiggled about him, uncaring of its fellows' squabbles. The Stone was, well, stonily silent as usual. He got the impression it didn't give two shits about anything in this world, and the Hat might as well have been a nonentity as far as it was concerned. The thing was vain - not unlike the Veela supermodels of Bulgaria.

For his part, he'd managed to regain his bearings somewhat. So he resorted to a quip that was almost a classic by now. It never failed to get the piece of cloth infuriated - he'd wondered many times if it had actually happened.

"Shut up, you old cum rag!"

The Hat howled with outrage, the sound echoing through the forest. He snapped his fingers, striking the bawling Hat silent yet again.

He suddenly felt a hand upon his shoulder, and he almost cricked his neck to face his opponent. His eyes softened as he saw the lovely female he had rescued staring at him unflinchingly as she stood behind him. Relieved that his charm upon the hat held this time, he brought his own hand up to enclose her shaking palm in his, hoping she'd draw some comfort from a strong grip. Reassuring physical contact, he'd found over the years, went great lengths in soothing a distressed mind. In his other hand he twirled the Elder Wand; this situation was getting trickier by the minute. The ruler of these woods had taken the trouble to cancel every enchantment he had cast.

" _Mime amal tirith, Istar!"_ she said softly.

There was a vast relief in her eyes as she looked around the woods. Harry could read people well enough to understand she had arrived at a place she considered home. He smiled at her as she gripped his palm fiercely, wondering why she timidly stepped behind him like a child seeking protection from the world by hiding behind it's parent's back.

However, a touch of cold steel at his neck told him why. His heart stopped for a moment; he'd heard no one approach even with the _Supersensory_ _charm_ aiding him. He slowly turned, not wanting to alarm his assailant into cutting his neck.

"Great. Just great," he muttered.

Surrounding him were six warriors, clad in silver armour that was in the design of the shining leaves that fell ceaselessly to the ground. He could see their great age not in their bodies which exuded grace and strength, but in their eyes that remembered durations greater than several lifetimes of men. All of them had hair flowing down to their shoulders or waist, and were beautiful to look upon. The width of their shoulders and the cut of their faces announced them as male, and by their pointed ears they were of the same species as the one concealing herself behind him.

" _Hiril Celebrian,"_ said the one holding the sword to his neck, looking not at him but at the lady standing behind him.

Harry took a deep breath as she seemed to gather whatever strength she had left in her, he could feel her straighten. She did not, however, step out from behind him to face the semicircle of her kin with their swords pointed at him. He blinked, feeling a deep pulse of pity and helpless rage at what trauma she must have suffered to act this way. To torment and break someone as beautiful and exalted as her...in his eyes, it felt as foul as torturing a Unicorn. He again wondered to himself as to what a strange world he'd landed in. Contradiction, darkness and confusion were all he had seen here thus far.

" _Haldir, esse mime tharo. Vainelda macil."_

At her words, the warriors' stance relaxed somewhat. However, the one she'd addressed as Haldir fixed his grey eyes upon Harry without removing his blade. The edge of it was so close to his neck that Harry could see his own face, no older than it had been when he was twenty six, reflected upon its cold steel. He idly wondered what they saw when they looked upon his apparently youthful visage? Could they possibly sense something of the endless centuries he had spent travelling world after world? He had stopped counting the years after the first four hundred. He bowed his head and his body shook ever so slightly as he shied away from examining too closely the bottomless chasm that were the memories of his travels through the worlds of the infinity.

He could hear them conversing again, and could feel her slowly emerge from behind him to stand at his side. A hint of authority seemed to enter her troubled and melodious voice as she spoke, and he finally felt the blade upon his neck drawn away. He opened his eyes to the sight of the warriors silently sheathing their blades.

The silver haired lady diffidently stepped forward to face him, meeting his gaze at a height equal to his. He could see the painful shadow of fear and torment behind her eyes, as she squeezed his hand with surprising strength. Her free hand rose delicately to point at her heart.

" _Celebrian,"_ she said softly.

The six soldiers encircling them watched him warily, Haldir with a hand upon the hilt of his sword. He raised his hands above his head to show them he held no weapon, ignoring the Hat wriggling angrily atop his head.

" _Celebrian,"_ he said in reply, acknowledging her with a bow of his head.

Her eyes lit up with happiness when he uttered her name, and she swiftly walked back to his side without letting go of his hand. Haldir and his companions looked on with inscrutable expressions as she placed herself behind him, as she had done before.

" _Aphad, Istar,"_ said Haldir curtly, gesturing towards the woods where the trees were so numerous that they almost became one mass. The other five stepped after Haldir, making no noise even as they trod upon the fallen leaves. He felt Celebrian's hand move in his, and turned back to look at her.

At her demure nod towards their departing escort, he began to follow. Only his footfalls caused the leaves to rustle, as Celebrian walked just behind him with a light-footedness that almost made him believe she was floating upon the leafy forest floor.

 _Hat, I'm going to remove the charm I cast upon you. Promise me you'll shut the hell up for the next day or so. We can't afford to let you spark another war here with your usual insolence,_ he thought at the Hat.

The artifact was silent, and then:

 _Eat shit, Potter. Yes, you cur. Wait for when your limp-dicked charm fails again. Then I'll let you have it._

 _Say goodbye to speech for the next week, you rotted cum rag,_ he told the hat maliciously, letting no satisfaction show as he lorded over the Hat. The Elder Wand pulsed with satisfaction as he straightened his shoulders, walling his mind off to the enraged protests of the Hat. This was an old feeling to him, he thought, as he walked into the ethereal glade with warriors and a princess. This he was comfortable with - annoying the hat, walking with the Hallows by his side to face the unknown.

He smiled slightly as he trod deeper into the forest, leading Celebrian by her hand.

….

" _Caras Galadhon,"_ said Haldir quietly as their woody route opened out into a stunning vista.

Harry's hands shook slightly as he laid eyes upon the towering mass of golden green forest that rose hundreds of feet high, almost blotting out the clear blue skies. Their route had brought them almost directly to the gates of this otherworldly place within a few hours. He took a deep breath, trying to imbibe huge lungfuls of the pristine and ancient air of this place. The breaths he took, indeed the very air of this place, they seemed to calm him down and wash away his fatigue and agitation.

Celebrian's memories were accurate: there was a great power here that to him felt warily welcoming, with an edge of readiness. The one who kept this forest thriving was not far - he could feel them at the very center of this secret forest-city spread before him. That being was old, perhaps older than him, though time was a rather fluid concept as far as he was concerned so he really couldn't say for sure; anyway, he'd gained an instinct for these kinds of things. His sensitivity to magic had developed considerably over the years - he'd really had no choice. The fear of being ambushed and slaughtered horribly was a good motivator to develop all sorts of hidden talents. Ah, he sort of missed Treshinhan, that backwards world full of warring idiots. He'd sort of been young and naive back then, running around to save everything and everyone in a world already doomed to die in its own shit. His helpless naivete from those days honestly made him retch sometimes.

 _Oh you're still plenty naive, Potter. You're just older, not wiser._

 _Out!,_ he shouted mentally, violently severing the sneaky connection to his mind the Hat had created. Damn cloth did this all the time when he didn't pay attention. The Hat was one of the most skilled Legilimencers he'd ever encountered - the thing was well at Voldemort's level, and was sneakier than Dumbledore. They'd begun their...well, their partnership for the lack of a better word, to train him in the mental arts. Back home, the Hat had taught him how to use the mental arts for battle. He still remembered the first day of its instruction with a nightmarish clarity.

And even after _all_ this time, it could sneak into his mind as easily as it did on that first day. He grumbled a few choice epithets, drawing wary looks from his armed escort. Celebrian said something in that musical language of hers, looking at him with concern.

"I'm okay. I'm okay," he murmured to them, making reassuring motions with his free hand. He looked up at Celebrian when she squeezed his hand with quite a bit of strength, her eyes pensive when she looked at him.

"Aw crap. I _knew_ I forgot something," he murmured as she spoke in that hauntingly melodious language again, this time mixing apprehension with her concern.

He twitched the finger that bore the Resurrection Stone ever so slightly, distastefully calling upon its powers. If the Elder Wand was like a hot bitchy girlfriend, the Resurrection Stone was like a cold bitchy girlfriend. It was a fearsome thing, the one he dreaded using above all others. Dumbledore had hyped the wand up so much back when he was a kid that he'd gotten wary of the wrong Hallow. It had taken him decades, centuries even to get a clearer understanding of the Hallows of which he was supposedly Master. Even after all the years traversing the infinity bearing the artefacts, he failed to fully comprehend their nature.

Ah well, they were still extremely useful to have for a bloke that spent his time traversing the ever changing facets of reality. Case in point: the dead fellow of Celebrian's species who was visible only to Harry, courtesy the Resurrection Stone.

 _Damn, you people really are something. Dignified even in death? Wow. I don't see that often,_ he commented admiringly to the shade he had summoned from this world's afterlife. It was a male, standing by his side with a solemn look and garbed much like the living warriors who surrounded him and Celebrian.

 _You are a strange creature. Strange, old and fascinating. Mithrandir wore the guise of men as you do, but you are no Maia. Are you perhaps a Vala who has forgotten his true nature, wandering the endless expanse of Ea and futilely searching for lost strains of the first music?_

He almost missed a step at the query.

Celebrian's grip steadied him, her arm bearing his entire body's weight effortlessly as she set him back on his feet. He grinned at her, waving away her concerned words as he resolutely set his eyes towards the fey forest-city Haldir had called Caras Galadhon.

He was also looking directly at the shade he had summoned.

 _I'm a man. A pretty weird one to be sure, but a man,_ he told it definitively. He'd gotten tired of all the deity worship in the first few centuries.

 _No man has the power to wrest the Eldar from the Halls of Mandos._

 _I'm a weird fellow, as I said. Now, your kind are called Eldar?_

 _Indeed. However, I believe you should not unduly let time pass in conversing with me, outsider. The mistress of Lothlorien, Lady Galadriel, is the greatest of the Noldor. She will be able to perceive your strange nature of having arrived from outside Arda. You must convince her that you mean the free people of this land no harm - she can be a most capable ally. It is well that you have long years of experience blending into worlds in your quest, but Arda is nothing like you have ever seen._

 _I'll take your word for it since you know all about me,_ said Harry in flippant reply.

This was the downside to using the Stone. The shades of the dead he summoned could see all his memories, from the day of his birth to the present second. They were privy to his most private thoughts and emotions - they knew him to the last strand of his soul. Unfortunately, it didn't work the other way round. That particular rule didn't fail to annoy him even at his best mood.

Master of Death, his arse. He had to coerce, beg, and plead for every scrap of knowledge he ever got from the shadows the Stone brought forth.

 _Can you help me with your language a bit?,_ he asked lightly. The dead were capricious and unpredictable, and this one had no reason to be any different.

 _I shall give you aid. In life, I was known by the name Galathil._

 _Hey thanks, Galathil,_ he replied, bemused by the ready acquiescence of the spirit.

He had to recalibrate his initial evaluation of this species. The Eldar, it appeared, were a far more complex race than he could guess. They were able to act with a rationality...no, a wisdom that he simply found lacking in almost all the races he had encountered to date. This made them both approachable and dangerous at the same time. It was just his luck to come across an entire race that was long-lived, where his experience of several centuries provided less of an edge.

He winced as the Stone grew hot to the touch as he performed what he privately referred to as 'hijacking'. He stole a part of Galathil's memory, a portion of the imprint the Elda had left in life. In this case, that portion was his comprehension of the speech of the Eldar. And it could only be done with the consent of the summoned spirit. That nonsense had cost him a great deal on more than a few worlds when he'd started out.

Too bad that ability didn't work with magical abilities - he'd only been able to use it with speech and muscle memory; he'd only been able to hijack those abilities that were native to the physical body of the deceased. He'd have just summoned freaking Merlin and somehow appropriated his abilities, if it had extended to magic! Another bloody limitation to the Hallows. He hated when he ran up against one of those.

Still, what he was doing would be counted as pretty dirty necromancy back home, but he considered himself something of a daring lothario who answered to none but himself. Thoughts along those lines had him feeling mischievous all of a sudden, and he looked at Celebrian.

"My Lady," he said, feeling that was an appropriate form of address for the sublimely beautiful female walking beside him, "are we perhaps close to your home? We've been walking an awful lot now, nearly an entire day by the sun's march. I'm quickly getting exhausted."

Their little procession instantly stopped.

"Oh. Back to this, are we?", he asked wryly as six swords pointed at him in a circle.

Haldir's blade was particularly close as its point tickled his neck. He grinned as he saw Celebrian successfully resist Haldir's attempts to drag her away from him, while looking at him with a very surprised and even happy gaze. The trust in her gaze did not waver in the slightest. Clearly, she had formed a certain image of him in her mind and would not let go of it for something like this. He resisted the temptation to sigh in exasperation: this was the burden of being a damsel-rescuing badass - women, even superlative specimen such as Celebrian, tended to lose their good sense around him.

 _You actually believe that, don't you?_

 _Shut up,_ he told the Hat, which had again managed to sneak into his mind.

"What manner of creature are you to learn Quenya at will? Are you perhaps one of foul Morgoth's deceptions released from the bowels of the earth? Foul he was, and given to concealing ugliness within seeming beauty. Speak, strange Wizard!"

"Maybe I already knew Quenya, and I pretended not to know just to get an honest idea of what you think about me?," Harry replied mildly.

Winding the uptight Haldir up was sort of fun. The warrior didn't exactly puff up, but there was a definite sense of gathering indignation amongst him and his posse. He pondered the beautiful sounds of the language he now knew was called Quenya, savoring its elegant grammar and flowing sounds. He'd really have to spend some time mastering it. Galathil's memories gave him some ground to stand on, but he was far from being a fluent speaker. As far as he could make out over centuries of learning new languages like this, the amount of fluency he could extract from the dead was directly proportional to his own aptitude.

 _Which, of course, is practically nil. Potter, face it. The only thing you're good for is killing things. The sooner you admit to that, the sooner we can get past this tiring identity crisis of yours._

 _I don't need that kind of advice from a rotten cumrag with no soul,_ he retorted automatically, concealing how much that had stung. The Hat exuded pure offense at his quip, snappily retreating into whatever consciousness it possessed. Damn Hat hadn't been this hard on him for a long while now.

"You knew no tongue of the Eldar until a few minutes ago, my saviour. Our forest and people are completely foreign to you. It is clear to me as the sky above," interceded Celebrian gently, interposing herself between him and their infuriated escort.

"Oh it's clear to you, is it?"

"It is."

"Um, how?"

"I am the daughter of Galadriel," she replied simply.

"Right."

 _Ah, Celebrian. She may not be her mother, but she certainly has that sharp power of peering through veils of all kind. The aid you extended her in her time of need was the only reason I offer you mine freely._

 _I help babes,_ _Galathil. I help them babes no matter what._

 _As you say, Master of Death,_ replied Galathil amusedly, floating beside him.

Harry sighed. Why did he even bother hiding things from the spirit? He was an open book to the dead he summoned, anyway. He looked up as Celebrian demanded his attention by squeezing his hand with some strength.

"I am glad for what powers you possess that allow us to converse in my native tongue. I have much to know of the one who," she faltered here, memories of her traumatic ordeal with those beasts clearly etched too deeply in her mind, "...who saved me", she finished.

A flippant reply was at the very tip of his tongue, but it died right there as he met her clear blue eyes. They were filled with nothing but complete trust and innocent curiosity. He couldn't help but lose himself in that gaze. She was ancient too, this he knew now. She was older than most of the Eldar who now guarded him, perhaps several millennia in age. But for all that age, she felt...youthful. Yes, her mind was filled with dark memories of torment, but not with the weariness of existence itself.

For the first time, he envied the Eldar. The weight of their age did not drag them down and bury them like it did him. They remained fresh and strong, unbent and unsullied by the passage of time. Maybe he still wore his thoughts on his sleeve like old Snape had accused him of doing all those lifetimes ago, for Celebrian spoke, her eyes shining with compassion.

"I see you are troubled, my saviour. I shall then wait for the account you will no doubt provide my mother."

"Thanks," he said to her, with a small smile.

The Hat as usual chipped in with its own two cents. He didn't even know why he bothered with Occlumency anymore while he wore the bloody cloth. He closed his eyes as he walked on through the hauntingly lovely forest, ready to deal with the Hat. Sometimes he wondered why he didn't just torch the thing and be done with it. Its stupid grating voice resounded unpleasantly in his mind.

 _We're going with the chivalrous knight routine to get her, are we?_

 _Hat, I'm about to go with the cloth-burning maniac routine if you don't shut it._

 _Fine, fine. Just saying -_

 _Fuck you. I've lived far too long to be derailed by a beautiful face._

 _Yeah right. You wanked off to her last night, Potter. Some knight you are. Who're you trying to fool here, anyway?_

 _Mere urges of the body, Hat,_ he dismissed loftily.

He didn't bother to shut his mind off again - damn cloth would find a way to get in no matter what he did. He simply shook his head, and kept walking. All this hiking was making him more than a little irritable. Just because he was the Master of Death didn't mean he was some sort of superhuman hiking machine. He was trying to be nice here, to everybody! He shook his head angrily, stomping through the meadows like a child.

 _Hey Potter!_

 _Fuck off. I've had it with you today._

 _Potter, do you hear-_

 _Fuck OFF!_

 _No, Potter. She let-_

 _Fucking shi-_

"Ow!," he roared, jumping up and down as the Elder Wand generously stung his abdomen where it was pointed. Shit, that hurt! He vigorously rubbed near his navel to soothe the pain, all the while hurling black epithets at the wand. His legs ached, his stomach growled, and he was seriously getting goddamn annoyed with coddling these immortal butterflies.

He paused in his walk with his back turned to his companions, and drew the wand from his robe pocket. The Stone glinted uncaringly upon the ring finger of his right hand, which held the Deathstick. The cloak fluttered behind him - too bad no one could see it. It would've made him look pretty cool.

"Alright, stop! I'm _done_ with this!," he announced, raising the wand straight up.

A bolt of blue fire shot into the skies from the tip of the Elder Wand, emitting a shockwave in all directions. It would throw everyone off balance, while not seriously hurting them. That would make them take him seriously. He whirled dramatically, entire sentences designed to cow them a bit ready to tumble smoothly from his tongue.

"Whoa brother," he mumbled at the sight that met him. They'd not even noticed his little show.

 _Yeah she let go of your hand a while back. I told you so, or rather I tried to tell you. By the way, fuck off and die you piece of dried elephant shite!_

 _Yeah I love you too,_ he said absently to the infuriated hat, watching the scene before him with wide eyes.

Embracing a shaking Celebrian was a tall woman of the Eldar, clothed in pure white. Golden tresses fell to her waist, and they seemed to be aglow with a light of a kind he had never seen before. She turned her face toward him, and he was lost when she met his eyes with hers.

A single glance at that ageless face told him much, confirmed all he suspected about her. She had seen entire ages of this world pass: she had glimpsed the infinity by her own merit, and she knew instantly from whence he had arrived on this world. Her power had insinuated itself deeply into the entire forest, into the very bones of the earth. It was she who preserved Caras Galadhon and the forest that contained it, not the other way around.

She could only be the Lady Galadriel.

If Celebrian was beautiful like the dawn of a fresh spring, Galadriel was the heart-stopping majesty of the autumn. He couldn't dream up a being like her with his most fevered imaginations, despite having lived in endless worlds and realities. She was surpassingly beautiful, wise beyond words, and possessed of incredible power. Upon her finger he saw a ring that shone with starlight, drawing strength from its wielder and giving it back all at once. Her powers were like the sun itself, giving sustenance to the entire forest.

Wiseassery and smartassery both deserted him as Galadriel gently disengaged from her distressed daughter, and began walking towards him. Celebrian was then promptly embraced by a male Eldar who exuded royalty and age approximating Galadriel's own. He was probably Galadriel's husband or something; his attention didn't stay much on the husband - he was probably an above average specimen of the Eldar, but it was Galadriel who he had to watch out for.

He watched closely as she stopped a few feet in front of him, looking at him as if she knew exactly everything he was. She didn't even try to act like she was the center of this entire forest - the forest and the Eldar themselves seemed to acquiesce to make that happen. He just stared dumbly at the magnificence in front of him.

 _Oh, get yourself together. You're embarrassing me, Potter. You can be mysterious too, can't you, if you try really hard? Go on, act all wizardlike._

He blinked at the Hat's words, a bit ashamed as he considered them. Mysterious? He supposed he could try. It could be fun. Touching the Elder Wand with a single finger, he willed a few spells into being.

A small wind picked up around him, tousling his hair and making his sleeves flutter. Wisps of dark miasma rose from his body, and his green eyes shone as if they were afire. Faint humming sounds wafted into the air around him, incanting all the ancient gibberish he had heard in his travels. All in all, he thought it lent him some serious mystery. He stared back at Galadriel, trying to appear as cool and composed as Dumbledore had been in life.

Clearly, all his special effects had finally had some effect. The forest fell into utter stillness. Galadriel seemed to take his measure silently, while Haldir and his team stared at him as if he were a dangerous wild animal wandered into their midst. Haldir looked furious enough that he almost appeared homicidal. God it was fun messing with Haldir.

At least Celebrian had ceased her tears, and was looking at him with some exasperation. That was good; he didn't like to see her cry. Her father looked a bit like he was caught off guard by all this.

 _Celeborn is a wise and strong leader, Master of Death, but Galadriel is greater than him by far. None save Elrond can hope to be her equal,_ put in Galathil from where he floated silently, visible only to Harry.

 _She should have married this Elrond, then. Celeborn looks a bit like he's her doormat,_ thought Harry, keeping himself from shivering as he engaged in a silent staring contest with Galadriel.

He was tempted to use Legilimency on her. He was so tempted, but he knew it probably wouldn't end well at all. On the other hand, she seemed to be reading him like a book. He couldn't make out much of her expressions, but it seemed to him like she was quickly putting together a picture of his soul just by looking at him. She seemed to _perceive_ him much like Celebrian had, but quicker and far deeper than her. She seemed to be using her - what was it that Galathil had said? Oh yes. The power of peering through all veils.

It was nothing as direct as Legilimency, that veil piercing thing. It felt as though Galadriel was peering through the fabric of Arda to see him as he truly was. He'd encountered something like this before on one of the earlier worlds he'd set foot on, though that had not even been close to being this subtle. Since there was nothing much he could do, he just stood there and tried to look like he was doing the same to her.

 _Some more mystery couldn't hurt your worthless arse here. Dial the mystery up, Potter!_

 _Die, Hat!,_ he grunted.

Nevertheless, circular gusts of wind blasted out of where he stood as if a helicopter were landing in that timeless dale. Galadriel's robes fluttered in the gale he had stirred up, but she looked completely unmoved even though entire trees were bending back at the force of his spell. For a moment, he saw her perfect form highlighted as her robes pressed against her. Words failed him as he saw the true shape of her body thanks to all the wind. Far from leering at her as he usually did with women, he quickly turned his face away before he caught anything more than the slightest glimpse. For some reason, he was simultaneously glad that he had glimpsed a hint of her absolute perfection and wished at the same time to forget it so as to not profane it with his all too human lust.

And then, it all stopped. The wind disappeared as if it had never been. The gibberish humming he'd created faded away, and the dark miasma disappeared into nothing. All thoughts of her peerless beauty fled his mind, professional curiosity...no, professional indignation taking its place instantly. He took pride in very few things, his abilities with magic being one of them.

"How do you keep doing that?," he demanded, turning back to face her.

He'd felt nothing when she'd countered his spells - they'd simply ceased to be. He noted with a burning face that her robes were back to their previous pristine state.

"I have more power in Lorien than you do, saviour of my daughter," she replied simply. Her voice was melodious, and seemed to be edged with amusement.

"Oh _really?"_

"Yes, truly."

"Um, how?"

"Because I am Galadriel."

"That's not really a reason."

"I am aware of this."

"Okay. Alright. First there's Haldir and his group of idiots, waving their swords around bossing me about. Then there's my Hat, my Wand, and now you. What the hell do you all - hey! Hey! I'm talking to you," he shouted as Galadriel turned her back to him and unconcernedly walked back to where her husband and daughter stood watching. Haldir and his little band turned their backs on him eagerly as well, Haldir shooting him a superior look edged with some contempt.

Galadriel stopped beside Celeborn, and turned about to face him. And then, the couple bowed deeply to him from the waist. Harry would be lying if he said that gesture didn't surprise the hell out of him. He'd honestly been gearing up for a major fight here, based on all the reactions he'd gotten. Suspicion was a normal reaction when faced with an unknown.

"Join us in our feast, saviour. Celebrian's husband, Elrond, resides now in Lorien since her capture as does their daughter Arwen. We have much to ask you, and we shall listen to the full tale of how you came to save my daughter," said Galadriel, and the entire forest seemed to light up with her smile. There was no guile in it he could see, no malice or design of anything but heartfelt gratitude.

"Oh. Okay", he said warily, as his stomach rumbled. He really was hungry, so he decided to go along with Galadriel's invitation. He tried to distract himself by shooting a smug look at an annoyed Haldir.

He did feel a bit let down as he watched Celebrian walk between her parents. Celebrian had a Husband? A daughter? Of course she did. The good ones were always taken, right? They were always taken before he ever had them, or taken away from him when he did have them. Why should Celebrian be any different?

 _She's painfully beautiful, Potter, but she's not your Luna. The fact that she looks like your Luna doesn't mean anything._

 _She has the same hair, Hat. That exact same shade of silvery blonde, and the same blue eyes._

 _She'd be a distraction at best, Potter. You've done this before, drowning yourself in women who share some feature with your beloved. Is it any wonder I'm so churlish with you? I've spent centuries trying to cheer you up, choking in your heartbreak. I've only just managed to stop you from becoming a sad loser of a world-traveler._

 _Celebrian won't die like they did._

 _Stop kidding yourself. I see you, boy. All you see in her are your late wife's fair silver hair, and blue eyes. That's fair to no one._

 _Nothing is ever fair to anyone,_ he replied cynically as he walked on. It really was strange to have a conversation with the Hat that didn't involve invectives and sarcasm. He jumped as he felt Celebrian's hand snake into his with an almost eerie familiarity. He glanced to the side to look at her beaming face. A kind of hunted look disappeared from her face when she was close by his side, he noted.

Great, just great. She'd formed some sort of an attachment to him. It wasn't unheard of, really. Victims of torture tended to behave differently, latching on to the first source of real security as tightly as they could. He'd seen it before quite a few times.

"Cerin Amroth, my saviour. My mother's home," said Celebrian, pointing at the hill they walked toward.

He pushed his turmoil away, and looked up to where she pointed.

It stood in the center of the forest-city, clearly the home of Galadriel and her family. It was a large hill coated with lush green grass, with two large circles of trees forming a majestic tower upon it. More Eldar joined them as they made towards the hill, all of them looking delighted by the return of Celebrian. He felt a bit like an exhibit as they pointed at him and spoke in hushed whispers they thought he couldn't hear.

 _You returned a woman to her family, Potter. Just be glad for a deed well done, for once in your life,_ the Hat counseled as his mind shot off into dark trajectories again.

He sighed, and set to the task of observing their surroundings, and hosts. He couldn't underestimate this world, and he couldn't lose his head. He couldn't die here. So he wrestled his gloomy thoughts into submission, and straightened as he brought his mind to focus.

They ascended Cerin Amroth for the better part of an hour, and he was distracted by the unearthly splendour around him. He was idly appraising a fantastically knotted tree glowing with what looked like crystals in its bark, when Celebrian let go of his hand and rushed forward with a low cry.

"Arwen!"

….


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

 _Oh, you like it here, do you?_

If the Elder Wand were a cat, it would have mewed happily and snuggled up against him. Ever since he'd entered Lothlorien, the thing had been extremely happy. Harry couldn't help but be reminded of all those times he'd lain past post-coital bliss with all those wives, partners and girlfriends he'd had over the years(except Luna, of course. Never her - she was extraordinary, and was beyond all comparison). Anyway, why was the wand so happy, post sex-level happy even? It was simply another conundrum regarding the Hallows he couldn't answer. Their behaviour was at best unpredictable, like the women in every world he'd ever lived in.

Speaking of unpredictable women; he glanced at the special little gathering in the midst of Cerin Amroth. He was leaning against a tree, watching Celebrian's tearful reunion with her family. And what a family it was!

He was disappointed that Celebrian's husband was not a doormat like Celeborn. He was even more disappointed by the fact that one as formidable as Lord Elrond could have possibly let his beloved wife suffer for so long at the hands of those scum. If it were his Luna, he'd have torn everything and everyone up to find her. He'd have lit the world afire and held it hostage before he let her suffer another second. And Elrond _was_ powerful! Harry could feel the Elda's powers where he stood. They felt similar to Galadriel's - calm and vast. However, Elrond's strength had in it a seed of something older than Galadriel, something tied inextricably with the very beginning of this world. It was faint, but it was there.

Harry suspected Elrond probably claimed descent from some sort of deity of this world - he could recognize the spark of divine strength when he came across it. He had tangled with more than a few such people in his travels, and he'd not always come out on top in such confrontations. True, Elrond was not exactly in the league of Lews Therin Kinslayer(that guy was a _beast_. Harry had barely escaped with his life when he'd fought that fellow, though he'd given as good as he'd got), but Harry suspected Elrond could still make life difficult for him if it came to that. He also took note of the silver ring upon Elrond's hand, topped with a large sapphire. It glowed with light and power to his senses, taking strength from Elrond and returning it augmented.

So why had Elrond not torn the place up in search for his wife? He looked to be among the very best male the Eldar had to offer(as far as he'd seen) - basically a male equivalent of Galadriel. And hell, he didn't get why _Galadriel_ hadn't turned every stone over to find her daughter. He'd learned not to judge a new world by his own standards, but this was ridiculous. He'd have to be careful with these beings - he never did get along with hyper rational types very well. What other reason other than cold rationality could drive a husband and mother, especially those of as exquisite a creature as Celebrian, to wait around while she suffered? Madness and callousness didn't fit - clearly, they all loved each other very much.

 _It could be something else entirely, Potter. You tend to stereotype people too much._

 _I'm old and tired, Hat. I do stereotype accurately, though._

 _No. No, you really don't. Anyway, why aren't you perving on Arwen?_

 _Shut up. Don't you talk about her like that._

 _Oooh. Look who's got a little-_

He wearily shut the Hat out, and avoided looking at Arwen with equal weariness.

Arwen was honestly the loveliest creature he'd ever set his eyes on. Her lustrous dark hair tumbled down to her waist in waves, her skin flawless and smooth. Though her form was voluptuous and perfect beyond belief, it was her elfin face that had him lost. Words simply failed at describing the loveliness it held, and her gray eyes seemed to be afire with what felt like the light of the very stars. She was like the realization of some ideal of beauty. No world he'd ever set foot in held beauty equal to hers.

Galadriel was probably every bit as beautiful as Arwen, maybe more so sometimes, but beauty was hardly the first thing Harry noticed about her. Galadriel was _strong,_ and mooning around her beauty was simply not an option if he wanted to have his wits about him. Arwen, on the other hand, had clearly not chosen Galadriel's path. He could see in her an unbending will, but she seemed to be possessed of interests that were different to that of her grandmother's.

 _Even her voice sounds like the sweetest music,_ he thought, hearing her speaking with Celebrian and Elrond. The small family seemed oblivious to all others, even Galadriel and Celeborn who stood by them as if to ensure their privacy.

" _Istar."_

It was a herculean effort on his part not to whirl about and deck the guy who had snuck up on him so easily. Suppressing his jumpiness, he carefully turned about to face his accoster. Appearing cool was all that mattered in the first few contacts with a new race - the moment they knew him to be the jumpy idiot he really was, they'd never take him seriously. And when he wasn't taken seriously, he ended up killing a lot of people - like, a _lot._

"Oh, you're twins. Twins are trouble," he stated matter-of-factly.

Standing before him were two of the Eldar, who strongly resembled Arwen. They did have hints of Celebrian in their face, however, particularly in the shapes of their eyes. They were armed to the teeth; swords were belted to their waist, bows slung on their backs and daggers were affixed to their armour.

"Your colloquial usage of our tongue is strange to the ear, _Istar._ "

"I'm not big on formality."

"Then for now, we too shall cast formality aside", said a twin extending his hand to Harry. "I am Elladan, and this is my brother Elrohir. For long have we scoured Middle Earth for my lost mother and even us, the sons of Elrond, found not a trace of her. We hunted and questioned the foul beasts in every dark corner we could find to no avail. We thought her lost to us, _Istar._ "

Harry tentatively clasped the offered forearm. His arm felt a bit numb as Elrohir too proceeded to grip his arm tightly. He didn't say anything though - he'd take all the gratitude he could get in this world. He'd need it, for it hadn't even been a week since he'd set foot on Arda.

"We know not your name or origin, _Istar,_ but know that you have friends in us forevermore," said Elrohir solemnly as he and his brother stepped back.

"Thanks. Erm, you got anything to eat?" he asked in a low voice.

"We are indeed poor hosts! Wait here then, Wizard _._ We shall bring you food and drink," they said merrily, sketching a short bow and each striding off in a different direction.

He simply stood there in the midst of Cerin Amroth, closing his eyes for a moment and immersing himself in the environs. There was so much to learn here, so much to understand. He honestly didn't have a clue where to start - he really needed to pick somebody's brain about literally _everything_ here _._ Information was paramount. That couldn't be acquired from Galadriel. Of course she'd demand answers in return. Not that he was opposed to such an exchange, but he'd rather not think about his past years right now. The last few worlds had seen him do things he rathered remain in a forgotten corner of his mind. As it is, he feared Galadriel had seen a good bit of his...well, his _heart_ , for the lack of a better word. What she really thought about him was anybody's guess.

He leaned against a tree trunk, soft lights glowing all around him like stars and the musical speech of the Eldar lulling him into a half-awake state. He lifted his right hand, gazing at the Resurrection Stone.

 _Galathil, how do you know Galadriel?_ , he asked idly.

 _Celeborn was my brother, Master of Death. I have known his wife Galadriel since our days in Doriath in the First Age. She was younger then, seeking instruction from our Queen Melian and spending her days amongst the Sindar._

 _First Age? Sindar?_

 _Ah. There is much you do not know. Worry not, I shall relate to you these long tales eventually. Seek rest and good company for now, and find what peace you can among the last remnants of the Eldar on Middle Earth._

 _You know me too well, Galathil,_ he grinned at the spirit. He shot a glance at Celeborn, wondering what the Elda would do if he knew Harry was holding regular conversations with his deceased brother. It was probably a good idea to keep _that_ tidbit under wraps for now; Harry would be communing with way more spirits than just Galathil soon enough, and the last thing he wanted to do was to waste time as a mouthpiece of the dead for the satisfaction of the living.

"I see you bear a Ring of Power, Wizard."

He almost fell over himself when he whirled about to face the newest conversationalist of the Eldar making a mockery of his 'constant vigilance'. Standing before him was Lord Elrond, his face unreadable. He glanced over the tall Elf's shoulder to see Celebrian smiling at him even as she spoke with her daughter, and Arwen looking at him. He grinned back at Celebrian, and nodded to Arwen before turning back to Elrond. He considered the Elda for a bit, and decided to offer a serious reply. Flippancy did get tiring after a while.

"Something I never wanted, but was forced to bear for the sake of duty."

"So it is with my own Ring, Vilya," said Elrond with a sigh.

"It looks like a nice Ring. I bet it behaves better than my own," he said, glancing at the sapphire ring upon Elrond's finger. He winced as a cold sensation spread through his entire arm, emanating from the Resurrection Stone. Clearly, it didn't like being badmouthed in comparison to any Ring. The Resurrection Stone had the mother of all egos, and it didn't take shit from anyone including its so-called Master.

"It seemingly does, though it is as set in its ways as I. Disagreements have been known to occur," replied Elron with a smile.

"Oh yeah. Disagreements. Please wait a moment," mumbled Harry, his arm feeling like lead now. The Stone was pissed. He drew the Elder Wand, and tapped it upon its onyx surface. It glowed red with anger as its power was forcibly restrained by Harry's spell. Harry knew he'd pay for this later, the damn ring knew how to carry grudges for a long while. Oh well, he'd have to just put it down when it acted up again. He'd let it run wild for for far too long anyway.

"That does it," he said with relief, as feeling rushed back into his arm. He looked up to see Elrond bowing deeply to him, deeper than Galadriel even. He was a bit concerned when the Eldar Lord did not even get out of his bow for a while - maybe he needed to say something to make Elrond stand upright? He reached his hands forward awkwardly as if to bid Elrond to rise.

"You rescued Celebrian from darkness and pain, Wizard. You have healed her body as well as perhaps any of our healers could. For this, I would offer anything you ask and is in my power," said Elrond, holding the bow a little longer and then slowly standing upright.

His eyes were earnest, and shining with as much gratitude as Galadriel's had. The relief at finally having his wife returned to him was palpable now, and his happiness was no small thing either. How much he loved his wife was now clear to Harry - Elrond was overflowing with gratitude, eyes slightly wet as if he couldn't begin to express the depth of what he felt. It made Harry a bit uncomfortable, though he did trust the Elda a little bit more at this genuine show of emotion.

"It's okay. I need noth- well, wait. I actually do need something."

"Name it."

"A guide. Someone who knows what's going on hereabouts. Someone well versed in history, and with connections to pretty much everyone in the land. Someone who can show me around the place. Not an academic type, you know...just someone, wise, worldly, and well-read. Oh, and strong. I tend to find trouble, so they've got to be able to defend themselves in tight spots," he rattled off his ridiculous list of demands. He could always negotiate downwards, but he'd never start from down.

Elrond stared at him.

He stared back.

"I'm planning to go exploring," added Harry unnecessarily.

"You are a most curious being! To address your query, then: Unlike men, _Istar,_ we have many who meet your standard for a guide. Lords of the Eldar who are not only well-versed in history, but have _lived_ most of it. Strength is in their hands, and wisdom upon their brows. None are more suitable for your purpose than Mithrandir, a dear friend of mine, but he cannot be spared. His labours are dire and need no distraction. However, I have with me several Noldor of the ages past who I can direct you to. They are older than I, and some even remember the light of _Valinor_ itself," replied Elrond, smiling.

"That would work, I guess."

"Perhaps I shall entreat Glorfindel to consider your request. Enjoy our celebrations, friend of the Eldar," said Elrond with a nod, walking away towards a knot of the Eldar who were conversing in soft tones.

Dusk had fallen fully upon Lorien, and he fell back heavily on to the tree he'd chosen as a back rest. Giving himself into the otherworldly nature of _Caras Galadhon,_ he simply observed the reunion occuring around him. The 'party', as it were, was quiet and dignified with absolutely no unnecessary noise disturbing the tranquility of _Cerin Amroth._ Many Eldar there were, each of them taking more than a quarter hour to converse with Celebrian and congratulate Elrond and his children.

 _Hey Galathil?_

 _Yes, Lord of Death?_

 _Some of these Eldar are different from each other, right? I mean, Galadriel seems exceptionally stronger and more intelligent than most others here. So does Elrond, and many in Elrond's retinue. They seem to share something that gives them more...well, more everything. I don't know - did they grow up on some better food or something? Do you get my meaning?_

 _You are perceptive, Master of Death,_ sighed Galathil.

 _Thanks. So, did I hit on something?_

 _Indeed. You have seen a difference in the Eldar no man can see easily without a great measure of wisdom. Galadriel and her ilk, they are of the Noldor._

 _Noldor are better among the Eldar?_

 _Better only by virtue of having lived in Valinor, and learnt from the Valar. They were great artificers, and warriors without peer. But for all their strength, they were prideful beyond measure and nursed darkness in their hearts. Not even Valinor's light could quench that malice._

 _Valinor?_

 _Where the Valar reside, Master of Death. They are the Lords of Arda, and the ones who shaped this world from whence it was naught but dirt and stone. Fear not, they do not intervene directly in the matters of Eldar and men. Their wars with Morgoth taught them the folly of that - Arda cannot withstand battles such as theirs. Beleriand itself was scorched and sunk into the sea by the end of the War of Wrath._

 _This Beleriand wasn't small by any chance, was it?_

 _I believe you would call it a 'half a continent.'_

 _Oh joy. Where's Valinor, anyway?_

 _To the west. It is sundered from the rest of Arda, however. Only the Eldar are allowed to pass into it, Master of Death._

 _Hm. Interesting. I can sense power in that direction, but it's faint. Sort of like the light of a star is faint because it is so far away._

 _Aptly put._

 _However, Galathil, there's a pretty dirty sort of feeling to the east. Greasy, dark power. Quite a bit of power, actually. A lot of hate and perversion too. What's there?_

 _You sense Dol Guldur, Master of Death. A being that calls itself the 'Necromancer' has taken up residence there, and the fortress has become a pit of foulness since. Perhaps you even sense Mordor itself, and its hunger for the end of Men._

 _Sounds ominous._

 _It is. The beasts you saw, the Orcs, are spawned in Mordor. Ancient evil rests there, and it does not sleep._

 _Yeah, I know the kind. Enough about all the evil stuff. Tell me of Valinor, Galathil. Is it peaceful there?_

 _All is made peaceful in the presence of the Valar, Master of Death. Bliss unmatched resides there, goodness is all there is in Valinor. The Eldar rejoice eternally in Aman, under the benevolence of Manwe Sulimo and the light of our beloved Varda Elentari._

 _Sounds like a nice place. I'd have killed to live in a place like that when I was young, Galathil, you know?_

 _And now?_

 _You know the answer to that._

 _But do you, Master of Death?_

 _Oh not you too! Go away, you annoying spirit,_ groaned Harry, dismissing Galathil's shade with a flick of his wrist. The hazy sleepiness had been nice, but Galathil had irritated him out of it well enough that he couldn't return to it. He sat up straighter with a huff, and opened his eyes.

He promptly let out a small shriek as he pushed backwards and hit his head hard upon a knot on the trunk.

"Holy shit!"

It translated more as " _Holy excrement!"_ in Quenya, the language having no word similar in vulgarity to the English _shit._ That however seemed to have had the intended effect upon his audience. Only Elrond's family, Celeborn, and Galadriel were before him now. The rest of the Eldar who had graced this occasion had quietly slipped away after conveying their greetings, and he'd not even noticed. Old Moody would probably have a cow when next Harry summoned him with the Stone.

"You are crass, savior," observed Arwen disapprovingly.

"He is a trifle rough, Arwen," said Celebrian diplomatically.

"He wears his masks well, Celebrian," said Galadriel knowingly.

"And you three scared the _Holy excrement_ out of me! Do you make a habit of sneaking up on sleeping guests and staring at 'em? That's kind of creepy!" remarked Harry, standing with a huff. He was careful to stow the Elder Wand deep in his robes, soothing it with his will. It had been woken out of its own happy daze all of a sudden by his alarm, and had nearly reacted with a rather powerful bit of magic. Appearing to blast Galadriel away would start a tiresome fight here, one he wanted no part of.

"Please stop swearing so. Quenya was not made for uncouth barbarians," Arwen suggested firmly.

"Whatever. Go away if you don't want to be in the presence of barbarians like me," he said dismissively, trying his best to act like her incredibly flawless beauty had absolutely no effect on him. He'd had years upon years of experience with beautiful women. They'd been wives to him, many of his daughters over the centuries had been objectively beautiful, and so had his friends. True, none of them had been Arwen-beautiful, but some had come close. Mierin Eronaile had been insanely beautiful too, before that bastard Lews Therin came and stole her away from him.

Thank god he was more than a few worlds away from _that_ nightmare of a world.

Anyway, the thing was that despite all that experience, he still had little idea of how to deal with beautiful women. And beautiful women, while being women, shared a common and frankly unfathomable psychology. Hm. Maybe he was stereotyping again?

Eh. He was an old man. He was entitled.

"I would like nothing more. Your uncivil ways, however, do belie your agreeable actions. I shall hear out with my family the tale of how you came to deliver my mother safely to us, despite my misgivings about you," said Arwen with a glint in her eye.

"With your fami- Oh. You're all here. Hi. Lord Celeborn, right? We haven't been introduced! How's it going, how's it going?" he asked cheerily, jumping away to distract himself from Arwen.

"It goes well. I thank you for my daughter," said Celeborn flatly, before deliberately turning away to observe a particularly beautiful tree of golden leaves as if it were far more interesting than Harry.

"No problem," Harry waved the flat thanks away and turned to the steaming plate of food proffered to him, "Oh, nice. Whoa this looks good! Vegetarian cuisine, huh? I like it. I owe you one. Elladan, right?"

"Correct. And it was my pleasure, Wizard," said Elladan with a smile.

Harry's attention, however, was immediately upon the food he was given. It consisted mostly of steamed and fried vegetables, seasoned with various herbs. There was also a kind of golden-yellow bread that looked particularly appetizing, and a large crystal decanter filled to the brim with a clear looking wine of some sort. It all looked wholesome and nourishing, food suited to the Eldar by the looks of them. He proceeded to gorge himself on the food like a starving man, tearing into the bread and washing it down with copious amounts of the wine.

It took him less than five minutes to wipe the plate clean.

"Whoo! Holy _excrement_ that was something else!" he sighed, feeling his body tingling with vitality. All his exhaustion was now a forgotten memory; there was something in that bread that sent energy racing through his body. He suddenly felt at peak condition, like he could hike back and forth from the borders of Lorien to _Caras Galadhon_ about a dozen times and not tire at all.

"The _Miruvor_ of Rivendell and the _Lembas_ of Lorien are potent foods, saviour."

"Elrohir, those were precious stocks and could have fed the border guard for a week. You just wasted it on this stranger," Arwen pointed out severely.

"This _stranger_ saved our mother from a tortuous death, Arwen!" replied Elrohir incredulously.

Arwen held her brother's stare for a moment, and then turned away. She didn't look away from Harry, though, staring at him with a defiant sort of contempt even as her cheeks heated red.

Harry's decanter of awesome 'cordial' promptly went tumbling to the forest floor, shattering into glittering pieces as he sighted a blushing Arwen. Seriously, no one could possibly be that heart stoppingly beautiful! Holy _cow_ these Eldar were something else entirely. Before they thought him a lecher, he immediately wore a regretful look as he indicated the work of art he had just smashed. Galadriel stepped in before he could proceed with his cover of an apology.

"Such slips are understandable in these...stressful circumstances. Apologies are not needed, saviour. Please, seat yourselves with our guest," she said to the gathered Eldar.

At her gesture, Elrond and his family seated themselves upon the ground in a neat row to Harry's right. Arwen looked a bit mutinous as she deliberately sat herself as far away from Harry as possible, though not far from his observation. Even the way she sank to the floor was impossibly graceful, with all the poise of a falling flower. He pretended to be adjusting his shabby robes, while he watched her out of the corner of his eye. There was really no helping it - Arwen's beauty was unlike anything he had ever seen. Eventually his subtle staring devolved into full on gawping. He barely noticed Celebrian sitting at his left, or Elron seating himself to the right.

Harry hissed as the Wand sent a sensation of burning through his torso, tearing his eyes away from Arwen. When Galadriel and Celeborn sat directly opposite him, he blinked through the pain and paid attention. With Galadriel to his front and Elrond to his right, he didn't feel like he could bullshit his way through this conversation like he'd done on so many worlds. True, they may accept whatever lies he said out of gratitude or something, but they seemed to him far too wise to be deceived by them. He'd have to give them something substantial to keep them off his back in the future. He'd done this so many times in the past - ingratiating himself into new societies was old shtick by now. He was pretty sure even an idiot like himself would get the trick after about a few hundred times doing the same thing.

"Alright. Ask your questions," he sighed, sweeping his hand in a wide arc.

"Tell us your name, saviour of my daughter, that we may sing of your deeds in our halls," Celeborn began smoothly, his face revealing neither distrust or faith.

He was ready for this one. He had a nice little personal tradition as far as choosing names for the new worlds he stepped into went. The title he'd gained on the previous world would be his name on the new world. One reason for this superstition was that he wouldn't forget the mistakes of the past by keeping the past alive in his memory. The other reason was that it was just easy. The real reason...well, the real reason didn't bear thinking about. He turned to Celeborn, who waited patiently for the answer.

"I don't know about singing and stuff, but you may call me by a name I've used for the past few years. It translates to this language as...hmm, _Mairon,_ I think?"

Dead silence was his answer.

"Um, they called me that because I saved a few kids from being sacrificed for a ceremony, which was in honor of an insane warlord who used to be a good friend?" he offered up, trying to fill the ominous gap in the conversation. He tried to control the shaking of his hands as he imparted to them that piece of information, leaving out everything that made it significant to him. He just wanted to forget his previous trip, wanted to bleach it away from his memory before it stained his soul black. Well, maybe black _er_ was the appropriate word here.

He was met with more silence from his audience. He shut those memories down ruthlessly, and put on his game face as he spoke to them.

"That's admirable, right? True, being called _The_ _Admirable_ is a bit tacky, but I pretty much turned on someone who was one of my closest friends to do the heroic thing!" he exclaimed. His right palm reached for the handle of his Elder Wand in case these seemingly wise and beautiful beings went all psycho on him for no discernible reason.

It had happened to him before a few times. He'd seen so many inexplicable things over the years that he now took little for granted, especially in worlds he was new to. Anyway, he gave up trying to kick start this conversation again. Looking at their long faces, some sad and some angry, it wasn't hard to conclude that _Mairon_ was a name they had a pretty bad history with.

Yep, this was his luck at play. Galadriel and Elrond's visages were expressionless, Celeborn looked openly distrustful, Celebrian wore an exasperated face, and the twins seemed quite uncomfortable.

"I can believe you were friends with someone who liked to kill children," said Arwen snidely.

Those memories were still raw, and they throbbed in his mind like an arrow in living flesh. That was the only justification he could give for his reaction: he _knew_ Arwen likely spoke thus out of a desire to test him; her face was too emotionless, and her eyes too calculating to be anything other than that. He knew she knew nothing of his past, and that her words should bounce off of him like rain from a rock. He'd lived through far too much to be deterred from his mission by the words of one unaware woman.

But...

"Shut your mouth", he told her quietly.

A shadow seemed to fall over Cerin Amroth as he met her lovely gray eyes with his green ones. Waves of cold emanated from the Resurrection Stone as he stared a suddenly shivering Arwen down.

To her credit, she did manage to meet his gaze without turning away and running. She shook like a leaf in a wind, though; gazing into the eyes of one who had laughed in the face of the Infinity tended to do that to the unprepared. Just a glimpse of the bottomless eternity he had endured had shaken her. He felt a mirthless joy as she began to grasp just _who_ she was trying to prod with her words. A bit more, and he'd probably bend her mind out of shape. Even those of long-lived races who were unprepared were not ready to grasp the truths that were etched into his soul.

Arwen swayed where she stood.

 _Potter, stop. There's something about this world. It may be the one you're looking for. Don't throw that away because you still have poor impulse control._

 _You always say that about every world, Hat. I'm tired of walking around on eggshells every time I step on a new world. I'm going to show these sanctimonious poetry-loving butterflies-_

 _What, exactly? What will you show them? That you are powerful, too? Potter, you know the drill. Use your head - acting like a primate serves nothing._

Galadriel stepped before him even as Arwen fell to the ground in a dead faint. _She_ had no problems meeting his gaze; seeing the abyss of a deeper reality reflected in his eyes did not deter her. She seemed to glow from within, a light that was unworldly, a light that felt of the immense powers he had recognized in the western direction.

Harry's green eyes turned pitch black, filled with points of light as if it were spanned with endless stars as he responded to her challenge. He was going to show in full to Galadriel the concepts she had probably only just begun to comprehend after her millenia of existence. He was going to make her _understand_ what it meant to traverse the fearful abyss of the Infinity. Sanity would likely be the price of such knowledge, as it had almost been for him.

 _Don't lose the chance to find your Luna because of mere words, Potter. We'll be in this world for a good long while yet, and we cannot afford to lose our best chance because you couldn't master yourself._

 _Luna…_

 _Yes. Your beloved. The one you love above all. Think of what you've given up to follow her path to this world._

At her name, the anger disappeared like a fire doused with a pail of water. The shadow darkening Cerin Amroth receded, and his eyes returned to their vivid green. His face relaxed as he stepped away, conceding to Galadriel. He bowed his head, furious with himself at this unforgivable lapse. He had nearly destroyed centuries upon centuries of meticulous labour upon a fickle reaction - he'd almost _lost_ his Luna. He clenched his fists, bringing his errant emotions to heel brutally. Breathing deeply, he released the frustration through exhalations as he'd learned from the Adamar monks on the mountainous world of Shimayen.

Elladan and Elrohir heaved sighs of relief and sheathed their swords with a single steely ring, while Celebrian simply looked shocked at this sudden turn of events. Celeborn had already raised his sword, but his hand had been stayed by his wife's grip. Elrond and Galadriel seemed undeceived by his withdrawal, clearly understanding that he hid capabilities beyond what they'd assumed. Galadriel in particular looked at him with a barely veiled and burning curiosity, seeming ready to pry him apart if necessary to learn his secrets.

Anyway, damn. The idea had been to insinuate himself in their society as their friendly neighborhood wizard, as he'd done many times previously. Instead he'd gotten pissed off by Arwen, and gotten into a completely unnecessary dick measuring contest. Now they were going to be wary of him, and make everything harder. It was _easy_ to mix in a group that thought you relatively harmless, approachable and useful, and it had become his favoured strategy over time. He'd tried the whole shock-and-awe thing a few times before, and that usually got to be far more trouble than it was worth.

Great. He'd have to go to his Plan B of dealing with them as their peer, which usually involved a good deal more work. This tended to involve all kinds of tedious stuff like responsible and dignified behaviour, which was totally not his thing. Being the comic relief usually gave him license to run roughshod over anything, and put him in the enviable position of being underestimated till it was too late. And it was fun, really. Precious few things were fun after all these years. However, fun could take a backseat if it stopped him from tracing his Luna's path.

One final breath, and he expelled the last of his frustrations. Or suppressed them; he never could work out what happened when he did this stuff. When he looked up to face Galadriel, he faced her calmly with the adamantine will of one who was unbent by the sorrows of a hundred worlds.

"So you show us a sliver of your true self at last," Galadriel said, "In the Unseen World you are barely visible to my sight. That in itself is remarkable. Sauron, the Balrogs of old, even the great enemy of Thangorodrim could not hide their natures from me...but you can do so, because you are not of Ea. Tell me then, _Mairon_ , of who and what you are. We have extended to you our courtesy despite our doubts of your origin, because of your rescue of my daughter and knowing Iluvatar would not let harm befall his domain."

"I'm a traveler of worlds, as I assume you've probably guessed. I have entered Arda in search of something that is precious to me," he responded, swiftly cutting through all the bullshit. This particular group of people, he was certain, could handle a bit of the truth from the get-go. They'd already seen a piece of his mind, and their reactions were adequate enough for him to impart a little bit more knowledge about himself.

Silence.

"Some _one_ precious to you, my saviour?" asked Celebrian gently. Of everyone, her eyes alone were filled with compassion for him.

Elrond held no malice, only consideration. Similar was Galadriel, though her husband and her grandchildren looked upon him with steadily deepening mistrust and even a measure of wariness. This was familiar ground to him: these were reactions that were common on first contact with a new society or race. True, he'd given them the truth far sooner than he ever had before, but they were unlike any race he'd ever met. These Eldar, being immortal, could understand the burdens he bore better than most.

"My wife" he said briefly in reply, "I'm searching for my wife."

"Oh" said Celebrian, giving her husband a stricken look.

"This is why you requested for a guide, then," said Elrond, almost breaking its equanimity at Celebrian's aggrieved expression.

The byplay was not lost on Harry. He'd seen this kind of a thing play out a few times before; hell, it had played out a few times in his own life. The scars of torture clearly lay upon Celebrian's soul; the bitterness of that torment, and the feelings of abandonment branded into the soul in such ordeals often surfaced against the ones closest to the heart. On Manz, his wife of fifty years had left never to see him again after being tortured for a week by his enemies. The pain had been so great that she'd internalized it as anger against him not rescuing her. The fault lay with none but fate. Some pains were far too great to be overcome with resilience of the spirit.

"We must consider your words, hold counsel. We ask that you remain here until we reach a decision," asked Galadriel.

"I have no problem with that. Just don't...please don't try to stop me in any way. I know you must be considering it as some sort of contingency - they always try to do that, thinking they're so clever. I shall be in Arda as long as my mission requires, and I won't hesitate to enter anybody's home or Kingdom if the trail leads me there. I think I like you people for some reason, and I don't want to fight any of you," he told them plainly.

"We shall keep your words in mind, and endeavour to avoid conflict, Mairon," said Elrond, exchanging a glance with Galadriel.

Celebrian walked behind them as they departed, shooting him a reassuring smile. Hm, at least he had made the right decision in saving her. Her gratitude would probably go a long way in nourishing his barely budding relationship with the Eldar. Celeborn joined the trio as they made their way back to the tree towers rising high into the sky, not even deigning to look at Harry. Harry didn't know exactly why Celeborn disliked him so much, and he frankly didn't care.

Instead, he took another deep breath of Lothlorien's pristine air, and swept his eyes over its ethereal expanse. Despite everything, he couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of hope that maybe his Luna had ended up in this world. Arda was exactly her cup of tea, from what he'd seen. The cloak folded snugly over his body as a chilly wind blew, protecting him from the worst of it. The wand sent a burst of warmth racing through his body from its place within his pocket, banishing the last of any cold he felt.

 _Aw. Thanks, guys,_ he thought affectionately.

His head snapped back up at the sound of a light step before him. Oh, the twins and their sister were still here. He did feel a bit regretful when he saw Arwen standing there as if nothing had happened, but her gray eyes revealed a disquiet when they landed upon him. It wasn't as if anyone but his wife could ever understand that part of him fully. He'd had some hopes for the Eldar, but immortal though they were, they weren't yet ready to face those truths.

"You bear intriguing effects, Mairon. A Ring that feels like the end of life, a cloak that molds to your body and renders you unseen," began one twin.

"A wand that smells of power," said the other twin.

"And a name," finished a Arwen softly, "a name once borne by a great Ainur before his corruption to darkness."

"That's why you all had the long faces?", asked Harry, amused. "Some Dark Lord type used to be called 'The Admirable' before he went insane? _That_ is a serious case of my type of coincidence. Anyway, sorry about all the drama with the...um, with the eyes back there," he told Arwen, still a bit ashamed by his actions. Reacting to mere words like that was just a sign of weakness in his book, and it meant he was slipping. It wasn't good for anyone when _that_ started happening.

"I prodded you to see your reactions. You were close to an edge, and I could see the memories you recalled were causing you to walk that edge. The fault is mine. Do not apologize," said Arwen, every bit of her previous snideness disappeared as if it were chaff in the wind. Her face was luminous and loftily beautiful once more.

And then, she stepped forward and hugged him close. It was a very proper sort of hug. Only her arms went lightly around his neck, and her flawlessly proportioned body was merely close to his own. He'd have dropped something had he been carrying it, for sure.

"Thank you for rescuing my mother from that terrifying fate, _Mairon._ The House of Elrond owes you a great debt. You are a good man," she whispered in his ear, and demurely stepped back to stand at her brothers' side. Her face lit up with a smile so pure and lovely that he thought his heart would stop. This was beauty right out of the fairytales, the kind no man could possibly dream up even were he the best of artists. He pinched himself, swearing under his breath. This couldn't keep happening! He couldn't be dazed by her every time he turned around. It was downright adolescent of him. He hadn't blushed this hard since Cho Chang had kissed him way, way back in fifth year.

"Um."

"You are no Ainur, as I thought you may originally be. Only mortals stand thus in awe of my sister, the fairest of all of the Children of Iluvatar" said Elladan, chuckling at the still dumbstruck Harry.

"My brothers are fond of teasing me. I was often vain in my youth, and gave them no little grief with that vanity and pride," Arwen informed him, looking admonishingly at said brothers.

"Ah sister. You jest. How could the wonderful Arwen Undomiel possibly have been vain? To listen to our parents was to understand that you were more wonderful than Luthien herself!"

"Who's Luthien?" asked Harry interestedly. He was a self-confessed admirer of the female form. Some people tended to call that 'being a lecher', but hey! He was old, and entitled to any desires arising from the imperfections of an aging mind. He dutifully ignored the Hat's contemptuous guffaws.

"Oh, a pale imitation of our sister's splendour," answered Elladan solemnly.

"A passingly beautiful elf-maid of little note, long surpassed in the perfection of form by our Arwen," added Elrohir with twinkling eyes.

"Luthien is said to have been the most beautiful of any of the Eldar or Men to have ever walked Arda. Despite their teasing, I have been compared to her many a times by my grandparents," Arwen said, injecting a note of grumpiness in her tone. Some people could do this cool thing with their inflection: they could make you feel like they were rolling their eyes all day long while they never even moved an eyelid. Arwen, it seemed, did this surpassingly well.

"Oh that. Being constantly compared to someone better in the eyes of your elders is tiresome. Fools did the same with me. They always compared me to my father," said Harry commiseratingly.

"Oh so you do understand. Does it not always rub you wrong how they take something good you did, and make you feel small about it by comparing you to their beloved perfect little perfections?"

"Perfect little perfections?" mouthed Elrohir to his brother.

"It _so_ does", agreed Harry, rolling his eyes. "Did they smother you in your youth as well? Not letting you out of the house, not telling you things...to 'protect' you?"

"Oh _yes._ I have barely roamed Middle-Earth without a chaperone in all my years. Rivendell and Lorien are fine places - scarcely is there a place in Middle Earth more beautiful than them, but the essence of the Eldar is not everything. There is more to Middle Earth than my homes," said Arwen, wearing a longing expression as she stared off into the distance.

"Sounds bad," said Harry casually. "You can't defend yourself?"

"I am the daughter of Elrond," she told him flatly, looking a bit offended. "I have learned swordplay from the greatest remaining warriors of the Noldor. In fact, I have little trouble in defeating these two in combat at the same time. You should know they are counted amongst the best soldiers of Rivendell" she indicated her suddenly affronted brothers.

"You take that back, Arwen," snarled a twin.

"I will not, Elladan. You know it to be true," she replied sweetly.

"Interesting," said Harry, leaning forward, "How good are you with the lore and the lay of the land?"

"I remember every single book I have ever perused, Mairon, and I have perused the entire Libraries of Rivendell and Lorien. My Grandmother is a Calaquendi, an Eldar who remembers the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. She remembers all the ages of Middle Earth, and I would put that above any book penned by mortal or immortal hands. Besides, I was alive for the last two thousand years or so. I believe that gives me a rather special perspective on events."

"Impressive-"

"Stop leading my sister into your schemes, Mairon. There is no way Arwen will be allowed to accompany you without Glorfindel, Erestor, and the rest of Rivendell trailing behind. We know. We have tried," Elrohir cut in tiredly.

"Oh it's like that, is it?," he remarked to her sympathetically, and the smallest of grimaces crossed her face.

"Yes. I can fathom how Lady Aredhel felt, confined to the city of Gondolin for all that time."

"Sad tale?"

"Sad and treacherous, Mairon," she confirmed.

"Oh."

They sat there beneath the trees of Cerin Amroth for a while. Harry fidgeted as myriad thoughts raced through his mind, and he shot glances at Arwen and her brothers who remained supernaturally still. This was a fey race he had stumbled into, larger than life almost. He tasted in the forest a sense of...diminishment, almost as if the very air around these beings proclaimed to the world that the Eldar had left their brightest days behind a long time ago. Galadriel's powers saturated the entirety of the forest keeping this diminishment at bay, but he had the sense that was more of a stopgap solution to the issue.

 _The tale of the Eldar in Middle Earth is a glorious and sad one, Lord of Death. Again, I credit your powers. You see as deep as the Lady of the Galadhrim, in your own way._

 _Yo Galathil. Yep. Glorious and sad sounds like the story of every world I've been to,_ he said morosely as the spirit made its appearance again.

 _Our time in this continent is almost over. Magic is going to leave Middle Earth soon, regardless of whether or not the gathering darkness is defeated. Even now, Eldar leave these shores, wearied by their ages in these lands._

 _To Valinor?_

 _To Valinor,_ said the spirit longingly, as though the memory of that place was tugging the heartstrings even in his current incorporeal state. _We have suffered enough in Middle Earth, protected it, bled for it and made it fair. It is time for us to rest at last. Only the young ones stay in Middle Earth now. Most of the original Noldor are departed to our home._

 _Ah the poor humans,_ he said lightly, _always cleaning up some mess regardless of who made it._

 _Men have had a part in this quandary. The Eldar have played a large part in sealing the greater darkness two ages ago. The lesser one exists still, and it is Men that must take the lead now. The remnants of the Eldar shall offer aid as they can, Master of Death. But we are no longer what we were in the First Age of this Middle Earth._

 _I'll start with Middle-Earth, then,_ mused Harry, rolling Galathil's words over in his mind. _I'll eventually have to make my way to Valinor if I find nothing here, though._

 _Valinor is closed to Men._

 _Regardless, I'll make my way there if necessary._

 _Mmm. Worry not about Valinor, that is in the future. The path you trace can likely be found on Middle Earth. Concern yourself with Valinor only when it becomes inevitable, Master of Death,_ advised Galathil solemnly.

 _Makes sense. I don't want to mess with beings of that kind of strength until I absolutely, totally, completely need to._

 _Ah, I am certain the Valar would hold no succor from you if the need arises. They are beings of absolute altruism._

 _Yes, well. Absolute anything is a bit dangerous._

 _As we have seen repeatedly over the history of Arda, Master of Death. Take heed, the Lady Galadriel approaches. I must depart now, ere she senses the presence of my soul,_ said Galathil, fading away slowly.

His eyes focused, and he watched them step out of the tree tower at the far edge of the clearing. Galadriel and Celeborn, Elrond and Celebrian, their age only revealed in the dignity of their march towards him. Arwen straightened slightly, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes when he saw the twins' faces harden as they loosened their blades in their scabbards. For all their amiable humour entertaining him for the past hour, they were clearly no wide-eyed children. He had no doubt they'd unhesitatingly try to cut him down if it came to that.

He didn't _quite_ draw the Elder Wand in preparation, but he was ready. The edges of his pupils began to turn black as Galadriel stood before him, the others quietly surrounding them in a circle. He wanted to make a snarky comment about the drama, he really did. A look at Galadriel's face, however, let him know that really wouldn't be appreciated right now.

"So...what's the verdict, then?"

"The verdict, Mairon," she answered, "is that we have decided to help. You may stay in Lorien, or in Rivendell as you require during your travels. This we would have given you regardless. For the great deed of rescuing Celebrian from a dark end, we name you a friend of the Eldar and assure you of sanctuary even should the army of Mordor be at your tail. We ask in turn that you lend your strength to the free people of Arda in their time of need, as you have done freely with my daughter. Trust is built only over time, and time we shall give ourselves. Do you accept?"

"I strictly wouldn't _need_ sanctuary from an army-"

"Just accept, Mairon," said Celebrian, cutting in with exasperation.

He looked around at all their faces: wise and angry, beautiful and cold, sad and powerful. Something, an instinct, told him this would be a more important world than most in his journey. He made his decision, reaching his hand toward Galadriel who clasped it in a strong grip.

"I accept."

….


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

 _Thanks a lot, Galathil. That...that was illuminating, to say the very least._

 _I have finished relating to you the tales of the First and the Second Ages as I know them, Master of Death. Still my stories are but broad strokes upon the canvas - the true picture yet lacks the countless specifics that gives it its character. It seems to be sufficient, though. You understand Arda far better than you did a fortnight ago when you first entered Lothlorien._

 _That I do. That I do, Galathil,_ sighed Harry, leaning back comfortably on his most favourite rock in all of Lorien.

The silence was deep indeed, even the fall of the _Mallorn_ leaves making no sound upon the loamy forest ground. The sunlight filtered lazily through the canopy of the tall trees, reflecting off them and lending the entire forest a fey golden hue. A chill wind ruffled his hair, and raised small goosebumps upon his skin. Galadriel's strength washed over him and the entire forest, keeping it frozen in the image of an age long past.

After listening to Galathil's stories of that age complete with memories for embellishment for the past fifteen days, he could begin to understand why. Lorien was an echo of the glorious power of the Eldar in the First Age of Middle Earth, when their essence had been the strongest. _Calaquendi_ , Galathil had called them - the Eldar who had seen with their own eyes the light of Valinor and the faces of the Valar. No wonder Galadriel felt so formidable; the tales of the Noldor in the First Age brought to his notice the fire and fey strength in them, the subtlety of their mind and hand. From what he understood, Lorien was but a remnant of a glory long past on Middle Earth. It was the result of an amalgamation of Galadriel's desire to create a refuge for the Eldar, and her nostalgia compelling her to preserve a fading memory of the ancient kingdoms of Doriath, Nargothrond, and Gondolin.

It was her way of remembering and honouring the kin she had lost to conflict and weariness over the ages.

He wondered, then, why she had not done as many other Eldar were apparently doing. She had an open path back to Valinor. Her parents were there, her brothers would probably be re-embodied there by now(he was simultaneously jealous and piteous of the Eldar being tied forever to Arda and unable to truly die), and the Valar were there. Aman was apparently isolated from the rest of Arda - it sounded like heaven to him. She'd given enough to Middle Earth, and he had a feeling no one would fault her if she left to rejoin her departed kindred. Even Galathil had scant answers to why Galadriel remained in a realm steadily losing its memories of her race, toiling to preserve something that already existed in abundance in Valinor.

What _was_ it that tied the remaining Noldor to Middle Earth? They were no longer the bright-eyed young race they seemed to have been in the beginning. Now they had clearly had their fill of adventuring and exploring, and their age had revealed to them a need for peace. He could see it writ plain as day in their actions. They were slow to wrath, eager to protect their home, and found what happiness they could amongst their people and forest. It was a fascinating culture, really. Maybe this was what happened when the wisdom of millenia met with raw intelligence and sophistication. And mixed in with more than a little pride and a smidgen of power-hunger, perhaps.

He had much to learn about the Eldar. Galathil hadn't even scratched the surface, even with days filled mostly with long sessions of storytelling and memory sharing.

 _Oh, there's Galadriel,_ he thought, watching the Lady of Lorien appear atop a grassy knoll some yards before him, headed towards him. He raised a hand and waved like a child, grinning as she responded with a mixture of a grimace and a grudging smile. He thought she looked rather fetching today, and snorted at himself.

As if Galadriel could be described by inferior adjectives such as 'fetching'. Clad in flowing white robes, flawless skin glowing as if lit from within and lustrous golden hair freely rippling in the wind, Galadriel was better described as a goddess. Hm, what did that make Arwen, then? He spent quite a bit of time deciding who was more beautiful. Was it Galadriel whose lustrous countenance had allegedly inspired Feanor to make the Silmarils, or was it Arwen who was apparently hailed as the second coming of Luthien Tinuviel?

He'd put in good time into resolving this quandary. Objectively, they'd rank similarly on his scale. But what was it that gave Arwen the extra oomph?

 _Arwen is relatively young, Potter. She still seeks for a meaning to existence, and happiness in it. Galadriel's been there and done that, and is weary. Poor sap that you are, you're always drawn to the more innocent and unrealistic ones. Maybe you live vicariously through them, longing to remember a way to see existence you've permanently forgotten?_

 _Stay out of my head, Hat._

 _You don't exactly conceal your tells, Potter. You're decent enough when your mind is directly assaulted, but you've grown totally sloppy otherwise. No wonder Galadriel saw through you so neatly that first time._

 _Yeah whatever. Now go away,_ he told it, annoyed.

It left with a huff.

The problem with the Hat, or most Legilimencers, was that the only saw fully-formed thoughts; that was a limitation of their craft - they could not see the half-formed notions, subconscious or nascent feelings of the mind. Thus, their reading of mental state was reasonably close to true feelings, but not necessarily an accurate representation of their entirety. Even the storied Founders hadn't been able to grant the Hat that capability. Ravenclaw had been the Legilimencer of their little posse, and he doubted she had had the power to actually see that deep into the mind.

It had kind of been a fairy tale back home in the kind of scholarly circles that concerned themselves with these issues. They'd probably routinely wanked off to becoming a bunch of creepy, mind-invading, psychotic excuses of Wizards. But what else could be expected of people who kept mutated brains in tanks and studied their behaviours and reactions to spellwork? 'The Brain People', as he'd dubbed them so long ago, numbered high on his personal hate-forever list. His thoughts turned dark, going in a direction it had gone to unnumbered times in the past.

 _Fucking Brain People_ , he cursed.

They'd earned his everlasting hatred not only for being complete and utter douchebags, but for turning his beloved Luna against him. Oh, it was all scientific curiosity, of course! The way they'd explained it to him, they wouldn't hurt a fly. They simply showed people the truth, apparently. They'd been so quick to wash their hands off everything when his life had imploded around him, and he'd called the lot of them to account before the Wizengamot. He'd put a good bunch of them six feet under eventually, but it had been too late for him and his Luna.

His wife hadn't been naive, but she'd had a curiosity that was a touch more than most sane people had. The truth was everything to his Luna - she'd wanted to know if snorkacks existed, she'd wanted to know if Nargles were real, and she'd wanted to know if a Legilimens capable of slipping into people's minds undetected and glancing deep into their souls were actually a thing. She'd been fascinated by the idea of souls for years, and the idea of actually experiencing the concept firsthand had set the researcher in her afire.

He'd trusted her so implicitly that he'd wholeheartedly supported her shift from her harmless team investigating the nature of ghosts, to become one of the Brain People. Luna going astray? The thought hadn't even entered his mind. Hermione could go astray, Ginny could go astray, maybe the vapid Parvati and Lavender could lose themselves. Not his Luna, he'd thought. Luna, he'd assured himself, was wiser than all of them put together. Luna wasn't some random woman like the others. Luna, he'd been so sure, was probably some sort of angel sent down by a rarely merciful heaven to give him a break from his shitty life.

And that had been the beginning of the end. How was he supposed to know his _wife_ had actually been one of those legendary Legilimencers those idiots were trying to become? She had been the real deal, needing none of the Brain People's idiotic ritualistic augmentations to go deeper with their Legilimency.

She'd been one of their storied _Perfect Legilimens._

He _knew_ Luna had started learning more of her talent with the Brain People as a way to protect the children. One thing he hadn't lacked back then were enemies. He'd been threatened multiple times by the old bourgeois of the British Wizarding Society, and so had his family. Luna had been disquieted more than he at the threats - he'd seen her terror at the idea of losing the children, had even held her through several sleepless nights.

He'd assented to her joining those fools just to stay the idea of moving to another country. They'd treated her like their queen, and she'd lapped it up. They praised her and glorified her, proclaiming that their beloved Brain Room was obsolete now that they had her. That their attempts were as nothing compared to the splendor of her powers. She'd soaked in the adulation.

She'd gotten entrenched in their cabal. They'd successfully lured his startlingly wise, but mostly childishly innocent wife away into their warped machinations that sought to look for things better left undisturbed. Luna had become caught up in her own ability. She'd been a capable witch and her intelligence had certainly rivaled Hermione's, but she'd never been particularly powerful magically - not like him at least. Her life had been a sad tapestry of people walking all over her, taking things from her. Maybe she'd liked the security her talent offered her, the fact that she could finally stand alongside him, Neville and Hermione as a peer in magical talent.

His threats to her new friends hadn't worked. His public exhortations had been of no use. Emotional appeals to his increasingly distant wife had been of little avail. It was like she was cheating on him - oh god, he _wished_ she'd cheated on him as opposed to what she'd actually done.

Luna had slowly started withdrawing into herself, displaying a haughty aloofness that had greatly distressed his children and alarmed him. It had probably been the feedback from all the Legilimency she'd done. Legilimency was not a free lunch - you could stare at the abyss all you wanted, but the abyss stared back too. The deeper a Legilimencer looked, the more they'd be influenced by what they were looking at. Luna's success and influence within the Ministry had grown so high that she'd begun looking deep indeed, foolishly believing what those manipulative fuckers had told her about her being the 'superior legilimencer'.

Oh she'd been really good, perhaps even the greatest he'd known, but Legilimency brought with it a whole host of problems that couldn't be dealt with by _more_ Legilimency. He'd dubbed it the Filthy Feedback, for that was what it was: it was the stain that was left on a person when they immersed themselves too deep in a bottomless pool of filth.

According to the Hat, it was possibly for someone to resist the Filthy Feedback with a strong enough self-image, but that hadn't been his wife. Luna was just too innocent and trusting despite her incredible insight, and her entire life had been built around unconditional acceptance by her husband, children, and friends. It was the same for him, honestly, but he could survive even when forsaken by all others. He'd done it till he'd gone to Hogwarts.

He blamed himself for starting all the fights about her irregular hours and neglectful behaviour, and how much he and the children missed her. That had probably struck at the very core of her self-worth, and had likely opened her up even more fully to that accursed feedback.

And Hermione, that bitch.

She'd stood by Luna when he'd sought to tear her away from the Brain People. She'd always blabbered some old tosh about Luna not being 'held back' by her husband, if he remembered right. Hermione had likely projected her frustrations with Ron onto his and Luna's marriage. Bitch. He could have, _should have_ stood up to her but he'd hesitated to initiate a falling out that would have potentially fractured Wizarding Britain. He'd been the one who'd stuck it to Voldemort, but Hermione had been the Minister of Magic. He'd backed down from that fight, stewing angrily even as his own workload had mounted.

He also blamed himself for not actually making the effort to find out _what_ they were making her do - he'd been far too busy blaming and threatening them. It all seemed obvious now - _obviously_ they'd experiment on people no one would miss. His poor Luna had been made to peer into the minds of the evilest scum Wizarding Britain had to offer, in an effort to 'train' her. Wisdom and intellect were one thing, but Luna simply hadn't had the mental strength to stare at such evil and not be scarred by it. That shit had gone on ceaselessly for more than a year before he'd seen the effects on his children manifest in one fateful display, oblivious idiot that he'd been. It had taken his little Lily's sobbing in a cupboard to alert him to the situation.

He was old and weary now, and he'd seen so much death and loss that he felt numb most of the time, but the now ancient memory of his young daughter sobbing in a _Cupboard_ of all places still cut new holes in him.

And that because her _mother_ had shoved her in there. She hadn't been able bear Lily's badgering for candy while she'd done her precious 'research', neck deep in some useless tome on how to ravage someone's mind better.

He still remembered how it had rained that day when he'd finally taken Luna to task, even as their sobbing daughter watched. He recalled with perfect clarity how bedraggled she'd looked, and how her blue eyes had seemed so unnaturally vivid. How they'd revealed nothing. They'd been blank and lifeless. It had occurred to a quiet, contemplative part of him that his wife was possibly not completely stable, but he had been too angry at her to give a shit.

He'd told her she'd had no idea at all how he and the kids had suffered from her neglect. She'd listlessly asked him to explain it to her. Like an idiot, he'd dismissed her and had turned his back on her saying the person she'd become couldn't possibly understand. That she was no better a mother than Sirius', that she was doing to their children what Petunia had done to him. He'd finished off by saying she had become a worthless mother, and that he'd be happy to take the children off her hands if she didn't want them.

He still remembered how his head felt after he'd turned her back to her and said those words, like a troll had thrashed his skull with a warhammer. She had hit him with her vaunted Legilimency, and that had been too much for him. His mind couldn't withstand the onslaught of her peerless Legilimency, and he'd crumbled immediately. A part of him had been happy even as he'd writhed in pain - his wife had finally shown her first true passion after behaving like a cold, power-hungry robot for a year. But that had been a fairly small part of him, because the rest of him had been drowned in rage as she pillaged through his consciousness in a way he had never imagined.

Sheer fear had been his only reaction as she'd rampaged through the pathways of his psyche, violating thoughts meant for none but him. He had felt the anger his words had lit in her, but that was nothing compared to what he'd felt as she violated the last refuge he'd had in the world, his mind. He had been helpless within the prison she'd created for his very thoughts, but he still had some tenuous control over magic.

And so he'd lashed out. His spells had been strong even then, and he'd been trained for conflict. His spell had been designed to subdue adult Wizards once their shields were down, and he was pretty sure Luna hadn't put up any sort of shield in her emotional state. His counter-hex had blazed out in a storm of silver light that wrecked everything around them, and he'd been in no state to cast his spell properly when Luna was dominating most of his mental functions.

Luna had been knocked out. He'd known that for sure because the drums in head had stopped, the ice and lava coursing through his veins had ceased. His vision had slowly cleared, and what he had seen had destroyed his mind far better than his wife could ever hope to do. He distinctly remembered his heart stopping as he stepped over his unconscious wife, and his wand dropping from his nerveless hand.

Even now, standing in the tranquil forest of Lorien, in a world several realities removed from his own...with millenia of experiences separating him from the events that had transpired then, his fists clenched and blood dripped into the forest floor as the self-loathing hit. He'd killed so many since then, and shed so much blood that it could maybe fill an ocean. He'd lost many children, wives, and descendants. He'd seen grief in a thousand lifetimes and still stood tall.

But the memory of his Lily, lying cold and still against the white wall of their home with a broken neck...that had been the end of his world. That had been the end of his existence.

That had been the end of his everything.

 _You've punished yourself enough, man. Hell would take mercy on you for what you've done to yourself._

 _Hat…_

 _What're you whining on about, anyway? Your brat didn't exactly stay dead for too long, now did she? She's happy and alive and all that._

 _Don't mock me, apparel. You know all too well the price I've paid for that to happen._

A brief silence ensued.

 _I must be a tiresome bore to you, eh Hat?_ _All the moping must get wearying for you,_ commented Harry, wincing as he unclenched his fists. Hm, he'd gone soft if these kinds of pains were bothering him now. He looked at his palms, considering the four small bloody holes gouged in each by his nails.

 _You're not a bore, Potter,_ said the Hat quietly. _You're just a wretch who has live far too long past his lifespan, denied the final comfort of death. But this is probably the last leg of your journey. Make the last push, Potter._

 _The last, huh?_

 _Looks like it. Looks very much like it, honestly. Your wife is almost certainly here._

 _I'm tempted to end it all, Hat. Seeing Celebrian's family...I don't know why that brought it all back but it did. I'm tired._

 _You could, but there is no death for you, Potter. You'd have to be erased out of existence, every particle of you, with that abomination of a power you learnt from Elan Morin Tedronai. That's the only way we've found that could have a prayer of a chance at killing the Master of Death. Would you rather prefer nothingness over your family?_

 _It's looking more and more attractive._

 _You always have the choice, Potter. I wouldn't blame you if you chose to rest after all these eons you've lived. I'll tell your children everything should you choose that path, I promise you. They will know their father._

 _Hat,_ said Harry with a crooked grin, _that may well be the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. Maybe you do have a heart under all that rotted cloth._

 _Oh fuck off boy. Ooh, there's Galadriel. She sure took a while to walk up here, didn't she? You think she knew you were up to an extra dose of your weepy moping?_

 _I wouldn't be surprised,_ said Harry, standing up from where he had lain lazily on the ground, casting off his pall of misery. He'd turned brooding into an art form, really; all the old darkness of his past did hurt, but it didn't pierce as deep as it did in the earlier years. He didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing, honestly. Maybe it just _was_. That was what his wife would have said.

"I apologize for interrupting your rest, Mairon," Galadriel said, seemingly gliding over the forest floor like a sprite.

"I noticed you took a while to come up here," Harry remarked cheekily, trying to deflect her attention from the gloom he'd been immersed in. Appearance was everything while trying to establish oneself in a new society. There was no way he could let them know how broody he could get at times.

"I merely wanted to offer you some time to gather yourself. I needed no art to know you were discomfited. A small courtesy was what I offered, though I think it was one I would appreciate were I in your place," said Galadriel, unruffled.

"Yeah you're right. It is appreciated. You have my thanks, Lady Galadriel," he said, deflating a bit at her no-nonsense insight; quite a bit like his Luna had been, really. His beloved had seen through people too, and had always been courteous enough to put them at ease. Well, until she'd gone off the bend, anyway. She'd been _scary_ after that, even to him.

"You are welcome. I hope your conflict has abated enough, then, Mairon, to proceed agreeably with the rest of the day. Glorfindel looks favourably upon your request- he has always been one to readily deal with greatly interesting curiosities such as yourself. He wishes, however, to meet you before making final his decision."

"Cool."

"What has temperature to do with this matter? Ah. A slang of your native tongue, I assume. Your colloquialisms are...interesting to say the least. I daresay I understand Glorfindel's eagerness to accompany a strange unknown such as you, Mairon. He is one of the few whose spirit has been undimmed by the ages, and he sees the world as I remember seeing it in my own youth."

"He's going to need all that undimmed spirit if he's going with me, that's for sure. I can be one irritating son of a bitch," remarked Harry dryly.

Galadriel didn't quite stare, but her eyebrows were raised.

"Slang," clarified Harry quickly.

The last thing he wanted was for Galadriel to start believing that his mother, and ergo himself, were actually of canine origins; stranger things had happened to him on other worlds. Some people could be wise as hell, but they simply didn't _get_ colorful language. Those Adamar monks were such people: wise as a couple Dumbledores each of them, but literal minded to the extreme. He'd learnt to choose words carefully there - they'd not taken some of his colorful curses regarding their privates lightly at all. Why, the stuff they'd done to protect their privates from the things they'd imagined he'd do...the poor fools. He remembered them fondly - they'd been his first island of peace in a very long time.

"Perhaps it is best that you adhere to the pattern of speech used amongst us, Mairon", suggested the Lady gently.

"I'll try, but I've been known to lapse."

"An effort is all I ask. It is best to keep close the truth of your origins. Come", she said, indicating with her hand the path that led back to Cerin Amroth, "Glorfindel awaits us. He has already made ready for the journey, and there are gifts we must give you at our first parting."

Harry brightened. He loved gifts, and he loved to ride off into the sunset to explore unknown worlds for the very first time. The novelty of new worlds tended to wear off within a few years, so he sort of treasured these moments of first contact. With a hop, skip, and jump, he followed Galadriel who began gracefully gliding back towards the city. He just _knew_ Galadriel would probably get all uppity at his 'childishness' - but hey, he was so old he could be considered deep in his dotage. Dotards could be allowed their eccentricities, now couldn't they?

He was pretty sure he saw Galadriel turn her eyes slightly skyward as he executed a smooth pirouette worthy of a ballet dancer back home. God, nothing took his mind off all the doom and gloom like annoying dignified and straitlaced people. He raced ahead of Galadriel, and executed a rather spry backflip for good measure.

 _Potter, you fucking child._

 _I know,_ chortled Harry as he lightly landed on his feet. _Look at her. She looks like someone force fed her a particularly sour lemon. Haha._

Galadriel did look somewhat displeased, but she managed to make even that appear part of a regal mien. The Lady may claim no royalty, but she was royal in a way that defied denial. He almost stopped his circus-antics to gawk as he beheld her sedately following him, the entire forest responding to the one that sustained it with her power. He had to remind herself not to anger her too much during the course of his stay in Arda - he did not want to have to fight the Eldar. They were custodians of a timeless beauty that even his old dried up heart wanted to preserve. He'd honestly had enough of torching up beautiful things, and Lorien numbered high among his list of beautiful places.

 _Oh stop it. It's nothing that complicated. You're crushing on Arwen badly, that's all._

He dutifully ignored the Hat as he plodded along, breathing the fresh air deeply and letting it fill him with energy. Whatever the stupid Hat said, Lorien was fucking awesome. He'd take special steps to help keep it a bit safer before he left. Maybe he could layer another warding spell along its perimeter that did something more dangerous than Galadriel's misdirection.

Hm, that needed a bit of thought. Whistling a happy tune as he sifted through his knowledge of unsavory spells he hopped ahead, his previous grief mostly forgotten. He'd become rather mercurial as far as moods went, truth be told.

 _You lost it a long time ago, boy,_ the Hat remarked grumpily.

It grunted unhappily as its words had no effect on its suddenly too happy owner, so it retreated. There was no getting to Potter when he got like this, in its experience. He had to get off his high before it could continue to annoy him.

Eh, it could wait.

…

The much-hyped Glorfindel, Harry was relieved to see, probably deserved all the hype.

Like the Noldor he'd seen so far, Glorfindel was regal and fair with straight golden hair worn long to his shoulders; he was proportioned like the perfect warrior - lithe, broad-shouldered, strong of hand and tall. He could see what Galadriel had been talking about - the Elda wore a genuine smile as fresh as a summer morning as he went about greeting Celebrian and Elrond. His eyes betrayed age perhaps stretching farther back than Galadriel's own, but they burned with a fiery strength that seemed ever ready to subdue the next adversity. Glorfindel's face radiated the same subtle light Galadriel's seemed to - a brightness that was but a memory of _Valinor's_ glory.

Harry was however more intrigued by the nature of Glorfindel's powers. The Elda's strength felt directly offensive, a weapon honed for centuries for the sole purpose of despairing his enemies. And it was vast, perhaps vaster and deadlier than any of the Eldar in Lorien. If Galadriel and Elrond were the insight and wisdom of the Eldar of Middle Earth, Glorfindel could certainly be regarded as a monument to their strength.

 _Glorfindel is the greatest warrior of the Eldar present in Middle-Earth today, Master of Death. You remember my tales of the Balrogs?_

 _Yo Galathil. Yeah, fallen Maiar who became giant fire-demons, right?_

 _Correct. Glorfindel slew one Balrog ages ago when he was a captain of Gondolin, and his prowess was but a fraction of what it is now. Truly you have the gratitude of Lord Elrond - it is not common for him to part with Rivendell's greatest weapon against Sauron for anyone he does not hold in the highest regard. He must consider you as important to him as his very own family._

 _Or he just wants me to believe he thinks that way._

 _No. Such guile is not his wont, Master of Death. It is likelier he sees as deep as Galadriel, and perceives a part of your being that has led him to make the decision he has. Elrond is inclined towards acting on the best he sees in people, while being pragmatic enough to prepare for the worst._

 _That sounds familiar, actually. Sounds a lot like m-_

Further conversation had to be put on hold when Glorfindel stopped before Harry.

"Greetings," greeted the Elf Lord in a voice deep and clear.

"Greetings," replied Harry just as monosyllabically, complete with a look of what he thought was pseudo-dignity.

"Ah, mockery. Elrond did say you were a curiosity - consider mine stoked. Have you found Lothlorien to your liking thus far, world-traveler?" asked Glorfindel pleasantly.

"Eh, it's been good so far," said Harry in a blase tone, wincing at his new title.

What was it with the Eldar and naming things? These guys named, named, and _named_ things until the mind (his mind, at least) simply went dizzy! He'd been given a few more titles to his already pages-long list. It was like they just forgot the name he'd given them, and just made up a new one every time he met them. It was ridiculous, and he was going to put a stop to it right now.

"My name's _Mairon_. Not 'world-traveler', or 'wind-hermit', or...or 'saviour of the silver queen' ," he added with a firm sort of peevishness.

"Mairon is merely the affectation you chose to be addressed with, wizard. When you honour us with your birth name, we shall honour your wishes of using naught but that name. Until that time, however, your story shall be a bauble for the Eldar to toy with. There is nothing we love more than the wondrous unknown; do not begrudge us that" said Glorfindel mildly, his face was filled with mirth.

"Wondrous unknown he says," muttered Harry.

"It is not often we meet one who has come to Arda from outside the circles of the world! Pray tell me of your origins, Mairon. You are no Ainur. You are a man, but a man unlike any I have seen in the entirety of my existence. I can perceive merely the surface of your strength, and I suspect the depth of it is invisible to any here. Are you even of Eru's creation?"

He looked at the Elda. This was a tricky question - he'd had to wrestle with this sort of thing a lot. People, in his experience, were not favourable to the idea that he was an existence independent of whatever higher power they thought dominated their reality. Giving them the real answer tended to create a crisis of faith: hell, he'd killed an entire village of religious zealots that time in the world of Istahar. But then, they'd been one-track minded idiots who only had space for half a microcosm of an idea in their minuscule brains. Glorfindel, he was pretty sure, was cut from a very different material. So he decided to try the rather strange tactic of telling the truth - it would be interesting to see what happened.

The Elder Wand twitched where he held it in his pocket. Galadriel, who was talking with Celebrian and Celeborn, glanced in his direction as if she could feel the bubble of silence he'd spelled around himself and Glorfindel. Thank god she hadn't tried to nullify anything: that would've led to one ugly struggle for dominance.

"I shall keep secret what you tell me, Mairon." said Glorfindel without being prompted.

"Oh, you can sense it too. Figures," muttered Harry, annoyed.

He'd have to figure out a way to hide his spellwork from the Eldar. It simply wouldn't do for his spells to be detectable here by anyone with a decent amount of strength, it wouldn't do at all. So that meant a few months of getting in tune with Arda and seeing exactly how his power interacted with this world's fabric. It would be an annoying few months of trial and error - he'd have to dust off all that abstract theory of spells Dumbledore had beaten into his head. The old man had been more useful as a Resurrection Stone spirit than he was alive, that was for sure.

"Any Noldor can sense such a disturbance in the Unseen World, Mairon. The change you caused to be resonated to me, and most Noldor in Lorien. It feels not unlike being doused suddenly with a pail of cold water," remarked Glorfindel rather helpfully.

That was uncannily accurate as far as Harry was concerned. Cold was the sensation of death, and his powers as the Master of Death had been described as _ice cold_ by many in the past. Resolving to devote more attention to a detailed study of the interaction of his powers with Arda, he turned to his to-be traveling companion.

"To answer your earlier question: No, I'm not created by anyone or anything you know. I'm not from around here. Not from Arda, not from what is beyond Arda, nor within. Not even from what you call the Void. I'm from...let's just say I'm not from anywhere you can imagine. I'm from _outside_ everything you know," he said, struggling to explain the requisite concepts with his still basic vocabulary of Quenya.

Glorfindel did not look puzzled, frightened or in any sort of crisis of faith. Indeed, he seemed to be aglow with a childlike joy as if gifted with a particularly delightful toy. He began to see what Galadriel was talking about. Most people on other words would either think him insane, cunning or malicious by now. This was an interesting reaction, perhaps one he should have expected from someone as ancient as Glorfindel. Really old beings like Galadriel, Elrond and their like seemed to instinctively grasp the edges of the nature of the Infinity. He knew that for a fact from meeting similar people on other worlds.

"That is simply wondrous!" exclaimed the elf-lord.

"You'll keep this to yourself, I trust?"

"You have my word," said the Elda solemnly, though he still looked elated.

"Thanks."

They held each other's stare for a few more moments as Harry dismissed the bubble of silence. He did not miss the way Galadriel turned once more in his direction, likely sensing that the spell had ceased its function. He also did not miss the fact that it was only Galadriel and Glorfindel who showed any reaction to his spell; Celeborn and Arwen continued their conversation, indifferent to anything that had troubled Galadriel. That was a relief, really. If any old Eldar could feel it when he went about casting spells, things would get tough for him on this world. It would probably get to the point where he'd have to start killing people.

"Mairon?"

"Yes?"

"Regarding our journey further, I am given to understand you have no particular destination in mind as of this moment. Is this the case?"

"Right. I'm looking for my wife, as you may know from Elrond. I have ways to find her path, but I must first walk this world a bit. I am equally likely at this moment, therefore, to find traces of her in any direction we start."

"I understand." said Glorfindel bowing slightly, "I wish, then, to extend to you an invitation to accompany me to Círdan, at the Grey Havens. I have matters I must discuss with him on behalf of Elrond, and it would be fortuitous for you to meet with the eldest of our race still remaining upon Middle-Earth."

"I accept with gratitude" said Harry, bowing back slightly with no hint of his usual mockery.

Grateful he certainly was, because Círdan he knew from Galathil's tales to be so ancient as to remember the days when the first elves were created upon Arda. Círdan would probably be a necessary acquaintance - he wasn't searching for Luna just through the space of Arda, he was searching through time too. There was no telling how many years prior to his arrival Luna had been born upon this world - he was only privy to the fact that there were traces of her path here. He was only able to divine that she had definitely been in Arda - not when, not where, not even if she were alive right now.

"Then you must make preparations. We leave at first light on the morrow, Mairon," said Glorfindel, acknowledging him with a final nod and walking away towards Galadriel.

Harry observed the Eldar, who seemed to tread with a certain increased vigour. He'd even have called it a 'spring in the step' had it been a human, but like all the Eldar, Glorfindel was hardly that unsubtle. He'd trust Glorfindel to keep the secret of his origins, but really it didn't matter overmuch to him. Ancient and wise though the Eldar were, he didn't really believe any other than Galadriel, Glorfindel or Elrond could truly grasp the meaning of what he meant by 'outside'. They'd all probably think him to be some sort of spirit disguising himself as a man, maybe one of the Ainur as they called them.

"Crap!" he shouted, sending the birds chirping peacefully in the trees flying into the air in disarray.

"You are easily startled, my saviour," remarked Celebrian, looking unperturbed as he pulled his hand off her gentle grip and jumped a feet into the air.

"How do all of you keep doing that to me?" muttered Harry irritably, shaking away the few leaves that had landed on his robe back to the ground.

He did his best to ignore Galadriel laughing softly at him, and Glorfindel's mirthful remarks at his expense. Of course, he completely ignored the rest of the Eldar in the clearing who true to their nature began flitting about like butterflies and composing songs about what a jumpy klutz he was. All in extremely elegant Sindarin, of course, but still it was about his jumpiness. God they were such ancient, wise, and refined douchebags.

 _Potter, they're just including you in their tribe, man. They're being nice, in other words. Look at Celeborn though - now there's one smug douchebag._

 _Oh yeah. Look at him, Hat. And look at Haldir. You see how they're looking at us?_

 _They're looking at you like you're Orc droppings, which you occasionally are._

 _God save me, you're adding another world's vulgarities to your already rancid repository._

 _You got that right, Troll face. Oh wait, I already had that one -_

 _Fuck off,_ he informed the Hat succinctly.

"We can all 'do this' to you because you are not really here yet, Mairon. Your body is here, and so is your mind - but _you_ are not here. Do you understand me?" she asked seriously, for some reason taking hold of his hand in hers, again.

"I do. I'm working on it" he replied.

She really was Galadriel's daughter, going by how much she perceived of him.

Since he didn't want to piss Elrond off by holding his wife's hand in public (Arwen did seem to be looking at them in an intrigued sort of way - _damn_ if he wasn't a chickmagnet), he chose to do it in private. A blink of his eyes, and they were both no longer among the Eldar. Instead, they were standing upon the lonely hill Galadriel had fetched him from a couple of hours ago.

"Were it that I could move as freely as you do, Mairon!" said Celebrian longingly, looking no worse for wear after suddenly being apparated.

"Where would you go?" he asked her, noting how similar her hair was to Luna's - lustrous silver tresses falling down to the waist.

Come to think of it, her face, eyes, and manners all bore a certain resemblance to his lost wife's. The same demure nature, the same facial structure though Celebrian's beauty was simply otherworldly, and the exact same shade of eye colour. Too bad Celebrian wasn't secretly Luna. That would've been really neat, though it would've sucked fighting Elrond for her. Elrond was a genuinely good bloke and Harry wasn't in the business of stealing other people's wives from them until it was really necessary. Hell, he'd faced a thousand false positives like these in different worlds.

It was just cruel coincidence was all it was. He'd know Luna the moment he saw her, that much he knew in his heart.

"I would hasten to the west in an instant. I find no longer my old joy in Middle-earth, no solace even in the halls of my mother's home. I feel haunted even in the presence of my husband, and my children. My soul feels tainted," confessed Celebrian to him in a whisper.

He squeezed her hand gently, trying to will some comfort into her. He'd been anticipating this meeting the moment Glorfindel had told him they were going to see Círdan. Celebrian had been hurt in ways that were too horrific and deep, and that hurt would not be mended by being reminded of it constantly.

"Let me guess," he said, "you are coming with Glorfindel and I to the Grey Havens. You plan to sail to _Valinor_ thereon."

"Glorfindel is a great warrior, but I feel safest with you. It is fitting that my last journey across Middle-earth is in the company of my greatest protector," she told him, the smile upon her lips shining with the tears she shed.

"Don't you want an army of the Eldar or something?"

"I do not. I have said my farewells to my family. Will you suffer my company in your journey to the havens, Mairon?"

"I shall suffer it, my lady," he said to her, winking involuntarily.

Inside he was cringing hard at how easily he put the moves on someone else's wife. He really was losing it, and he felt even worse when he saw Celebrian blush a bit and laugh merrily at his juvenile behaviour. Celebrian had just escaped a literal hell, and it stood to reason that her sensibilities would not be that clear. As it was, he marveled that she hid her pain this well. Taking advantage of that pliable state of mind was reprehensible, even for an amoral old jerk such as him.

He honestly felt nothing more than the potential for a close friendship with the lady - his heart would be truly aflame only for his Luna, and none else.

 _Of course, you ogle her with the experience of a centuries-old lecher. Very friendly of you, Potter._

"Convey me back to my mother, Mairon," she told him, still laughing and looping her arm through his.

 _She merely seeks to be close to your strength, Master of Death. I hope you realize that she seeks nothing inappropriate of you. Eldar find a partner for life. She is the love of Elrond's life, and Elrond is the love of hers._

 _I know, Galathil. I'm worried about me, not her,_ sighed Harry as he nodded to the upbeat Celebrian. The disturbance of the fine morning mist was the only trace left of their presence upon the hilltop as he disapparated them back to Cerin Amroth.


End file.
